Bored Robots: A WallE story
by Arrastrago
Summary: A mysterious autopilot, saved by two teacher bots, is sparked to embark on a journey by a string of messages left by Aperture Science. Did BnL keep a dark secret hidden before Earth's evacuation? What will await the three at the end of the trail of clues?
1. The Hijack

There was a strong gale that blew through the holding dock that day. A lone figure could be seen "walking" around the near empty hangar. "Walking" was not the right word however; she was actually rolling on her two threaded sets of wheels. The robot was curious as to what was in this hold; why were the humans telling everyone that it was empty? As she rolled down the pathway, she saw an old model of aircraft that it had been seen flying into space as of recently.

That was right, the Star Liners were leaving; humans were abandoning the planet. The robot had heard about a procedure to clean up the Earth, but there was another plan that most of civilization had not heard about. A fleet of craft; called the Cyan Marines, were created to be submersibles. The company Buy n Large found it to be less of a hassle if humanity were to live under the oceans while the surface was cleaned.

But then she remembered that how in the centuries beforehand, humanity had dumped chemicals and other garbage into the oceans. The water was now as bad as the land. But Buy n Large did not want to create an entire new fleet of aircraft for transportation to their Star Liners. They took the Cyan Marines and modified them; enabling them to fly into space. Over the course of the past few years, the robot remembered seeing Cyan Marines peppering the sky in an effort to transport as many people to safety as possible.

Then why was there only one of them left now? The curious robot rolled to the side of the once proud ship; the horrible air that covered Earth was prematurely wearing away at the outer hull. The once sleek blue was now mottled and covered in rust in some areas. She let one of her red and grey hands brush against the surface; despite the obvious weather damage, the ship was still sturdy. She rolled back and took the full figure of the spaceship in; it was shaped oddly, almost like a fish. The thing must have been at least 100 yards long. There were two giant appendages on either side of it, creating what looked like two giant spikes. The engines in the back were surrounding the tail of the craft. What also struck her as odd were the two dual cannons mounted on either side of the bridge, she never recalled the other Cyan Marines having weapons.

She continued to ponder in the shadow of the silent craft when she heard a loud thud from inside. Curious as to what made the noise; she rolled around the outer hull of the Cyan Marine until she found a small door that was left ajar. Ducking her head in, she managed to pull herself into the ship.

Looking around in the dim light, she could see that someone had been here before her; there were boxes that had been upturned, and she could hear someone muttering up ahead. Rolling hastily down the path she quickly found that the small door was a direct path to what was the command bridge. She saw another robot quickly dashing around the room clicking buttons and flipping switches.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, unknown of how the other robot would act.

"Eh?!" the robot chirped and turned around. It was a small little robot, almost built like the M-O class on the Star Liners. It was different in the fact that it was somewhat bird shaped, and the tail was that of the six colors of the rainbow. It also for some reason had four leaves engraved onto its belly. "What are YOU doing here?" it shot back quickly as it continued to mess around the cabin.

"Answer my question!" she shouted back.

"That tone of voice.." the bird robot said without turning around, "You're a teacher-bot aren't you?"

"Yes actually," she said, becoming boastful, "Systematic Art Educator, or SAE as the humans call me. And you? Your voice also sounds like the same group of teachers."

"Motherly Axiom Generation Educator, or MAGE for short," the bird responded snappish.

"Motherly?" Sae blinked, "Could have fooled me."

"Eh, that's why the Buy N Buckets decided to only make one of me, I'm a prototype, and I'm expendable. Those jerks were going to melt me down since they thought I was too rash in my way of teachin'"

"So what are you doing here then?" Sae asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?! For being a teacher-bot, you're not the brightest bulb on the Christmas Tree." Mage grumbled as she began hotwiring several cables she found. "I'm going to use this ship and escape!"

"Escape? To the Axiom?"

"Not the Axiom, you bolts-for-brains," Mage continued, "To space! Being in space is better than being melted down for one of those hover chairs any day."

"Well, in that case…" Sae rolled over and gently pushed Mage out of the way.

"Hey lady-"

"Wait a moment…" without hesitation, Sae quickly attached the correct chords and pulled the above switch on the upper grid. "That should do it."

"Whoa…" Mage was obviously impressed as the Cyan Marine began to hum to life. The room went from being barely lit to being flooded with light. "I take it back, you know what you're doing alright."

The two of them rolled/hovered over to what seemed to be the main control panels; they could see outside- it didn't seem that the hum of the craft had alerted anyone.

"What do we do now?" Mage asked; having new confidence in her "friend"

"Not sure," Sae looked at all the buttons and switches; if it was possible, it seemed that there were even more on this part of the ship!

"I-can-handle-this" a feminine voice came from above. Not sure as to who just spoke, the two looked around frantically. But only a moment later a figure lowered itself from the ceiling. Sae recognized its mechanical build as an autopilots; except it was much more primitive looking. It was the same color as the ship was outside, and its steering wheel was adorned with feather like protrusions. It gazed back at them with its single blue eye. "I-am-the-pilot-of-this-ship." Its manner of speaking was much choppier, it was either a very rough prototype, or was damaged somehow.

"Pilot of this ship?!" Mage seemed ecstatic, "Thank buttery Jesus! Can you get this tin can running?!"

There was a small beep from the Autopilot, "Vocabulary-not-sufficient," it said, "Please-consult-computer-screen"

Sae picked Mage up so they could both read the text that was popping up on the screen.

-I am not able to control this ship. Someone has disconnected me from the rest of the craft. I also apologize for not being able to speak with you directly. I am the first Autopilot to be created; and now my successors have surpassed me-

There was silence for a moment. Mage squirmed out of Sae's arms and scurried back to the modules they had fixed earlier. The Autopilot and Sae watched curiously as Mage quickly took a part of her red wing and jammed it into the circuits; she then made a small keyboard appear on the feather, and quickly began typing out something.

"I might not be the best when it comes to fixing things, but I can program circles around those Buy n Large bozos." She bragged as she hit enter and pulled the feather out of the board. The autopilot rolled a little bit in place. And there was a strange clicking noise emitting from it. It took a few moments that the clicking noise weren't coming from the inside, but outside. Mage and Sae both rushed back to the bridge window (the Autopilot simply turning in place) and looked out to see a battalion of humans outside. Suddenly a huge holo-projector displayed the Buy n Large logo, followed by a rather charismatic man on a podium above the soldiers.

"ARGH!" Mage shrieked, "It's Richard Nixon!"

"Keep your bolts in," Sae responded, "It's Shelby Forthwright, the CEO of Buy n Large."

"Same difference…."

"Hello fellow employees." Shelby beamed down at the people below him, "Today is the day of the last retiring Cyan Marine. Now, if this were a few decades ago, we would have been using money to build a museum for this craft. We would have spent money keeping it maintained, but not now. The important thing now is too evacuate planet Earth and clean the refuse. This Cyan Marine is one of the said refuse. I trust you as the demolition team to take care of these here."

"AT ONCE SIR!" The group responded.

"Glad to hear it boys!" Shelby gave the thumbs up signal. "Have fun out there!" and the screen went dark.

"Oh gaaawd!" MAGE slapped the Autopilot silly, "Do something! They're gonna tear you apart!"

-Whatever you did with your red wing, it was good. Enabling engines in five, four, three, two….-

There was a tremendous blast of sound as the eight engines of the Cyan Marine activated and began to burst at full force. The Cyan Marine was tethered down, but it didn't matter, the engines given to it were able to make it able to blast through its restraints easily. The group of humans watched in confusion and surprise as the machine continued to roar across the hangar. It hit the walls of the building and effortlessly crashed through it; its nose had been built for breaking ice burgs in the ocean, a little bit of wall wasn't going to slow it down.

The ship soared across the sky, and in no time was flying though the atmosphere. Despite it being in such bad shape, the hardy ship was holding up quite well. Mage shook her head as the craft experienced turbulence like no other as they fought against the pull of Earth. There was a tinkling of glass as the Cyan Marine hit countless satellites on its way out. Within moments, the anxiousness and fear of what was approaching doom was gone. The three of them were safe.

Sae breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. She wasn't built for this kind of excitement, after all, she was a teacher; not a service robot. Mage was faring better for some reason; she took the opportunity to ask the Autopilot if it was okay.

-Systems go. It seems that everything was just like how I left it. It seems….. also, that I am now so obsolete that my very own creator was going to destroy me….-

Mage gave the computer screen the most sympathetic look she could manage. She pat the main core of the Autopilot. "It's going to be okay, me and Brainy Girl back there will keep you company."

"Thank-you" the Autopilot responded in its limited vocabulary.

"Where to now?" Sae rolled back to the other two. This was a good question, in their haste to escape, there really wasn't a plan after that. Only to survive…..

"Screw running. Screw survival. Lets live!" Mage threw her little wings up. "Autopilot, this whole universe is waiting for the three of us. And there's no time limit, no boundaries, no rules. Time to go!"

"What-a-bout-Buy-n-Large?"

"And screw Buy n Large most of all" Mage quickly added, "If they want to keep ruining everything, it's their business. But we got a whole world ahead of us."

"You're right!" Sae agreed. Even though it hadn't been a full hour since their meeting, she had trust in the little bird robot.

"Okay Autopilot!" Mage said joyfully, "Time to get this show on the road!"

And with that, the now free Cyan Marine jetted off into the starry inky blackness of space.

And somewhere off in that inky blackness, someone watched. They knew that the experiment was well underway. They didn't know how long it would take; but they would see it through with the other two. The entity felt the eyes of its accomplices and subjects watching on in interest.

"The Lead Choushin has started the experiment. Let us hope this all goes according to plan."

They were patient.

They would wait.


	2. The Memory

What had been days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. Years turned into decades. Decades turned into centuries. What would have been several generations of humans was merely the blink of an eye to the protopilot and the teachers

It was almost the seventh century that the Cyan Marine had made its escape. And since then, the three who were on board had traveled the vast reaches of space; almost never had there been a dull moment for any of them.

Mage sat upon a crate; typing something into her purple feather. Sae leaned over the smaller robot curiously. She hadn't seen Mage use this feather at all; not even on any of their adventures on terrestrial planets.

"I've never asked," she tried to initiate a conversation, "but what exactly is the purple feather for?"

"Eh?" Mage looked up, and upon realizing she was being asked a question, went back to work. "This is my documentation drive. I usually update this thing every ten years. It's my way of recording things." although she didn't mention what exactly for. Seeing she wasn't going to get more out of the smaller teacher, Sae decided to leave her be.

Over the long journey, MAGE had become considerably mellower with the trio, but it didn't keep her from going into a rage if they crossed paths with a BnL Star Liner. It seemed that after their escape, Shelby Forthwright didn't hesitate in telling the BnL fleet that one of their old spaceships had gone rogue and was potentially dangerous. The first time they had crossed paths, it had been a security ship, and their greeting was a shower of lasers. The older ship was strangely more maneuverable than the newer one, and was able to fly to safety; but it was still unnerving that for a few good years, all humans had a "seek and destroy" image stamped into their heads about the Cyan Marine.

Mage typed up a few more things into the feather before sticking it back in its rightful spot. With a heavy sigh she putted over to the Ships Wheel.

"Hey… Otua, how are you feeling today?"

There was silence for a moment. Then Mage noticed text appearing on the screen she was now accustomed to reading.

-Everything on board is okay. The ship has been stabilized on solar and dust energy for the past centuries.-

"I didn't mean the ship," Mage seemed a bit irritated, "I meant you."

There was silence, from both the wheel and the screen. Mage blinked; unsure of how to handle the situation, she turned to Sae, who rolled up next to the bird and asked the question again.

"Otua, Mage is worried about you.. aren't you going to answer?" Sae tapped the side of the computer screen that the text always appeared on.

"I-am…." There was a pause in the robotic voice, "I-am …sad."

"Eh?" Mage seemed offended by what was spoken by the protopilot. "Is it that same dumb thing that happened so many centuries ago that's still got you down?"

Sae's eyes flickered to her sad ones. She knew what Mage was talking about. Despite the fact that Otua was an older model than both of them, she had an uncanny knack for remembering things. Even Mage had to type things into her system for safe keeping.

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"Oi! What's the big deal?!" Mage was tossed head over heels as the Cyan Marine was hit with a barrage of small shots. "First it was the security ship! Now it's a freaking Buy and Bucket star liner!"

"Not just any!" Sae grabbed a hold of the bird with one arm and clung to a protrusion in the wall to keep balance. "Autopilot! What're they doing?!"

"Enemy-fire-from-friendly-source" the autopilot exclaimed.

"NO DUH!" Mage hollered back, "BUT WHY ARE THEY SHOOTING AT US?!"

"Receiving-transmission"

Almost right after the autopilot spoke a screen appeared behind above the bridge window. A man in a naval uniform and a stark white Autopilot with a red eye were glaring back at them.

"Now hear this!" The human said, "The CEO of Buy and Large has deemed you, the crew of the Cyan Marine, to be rogues who have sto-" he paused, "Wait a minute, where is the crew?"

"Captain," The white autopilot said, "It seems we are talking to the crew."

"But… there's only three of them, and they're all robots!" He peered at the Autopilot of the Cyan Marine. "One of them looks like you too Auto!"

"Nonsense," Auto replied, "The autopilot division does not have a manufactured type like that one. That is a protopilot; it is an outdated type of Autopilot. It is probably the reason why the fleet of Cyan Marines was destroyed; it is not good enough in today's age for it to function. It is the exact opposite of myself."

"Hey One Eye!" Mage spat back, "Who're you calling unfit?! If it were up to me, I'd say YOU'RE the one who's unfit! Look at you! You're the Buy and Large's lap dog!"

"Not possible," the Autopilot returned the argument, "You three are destined for deactivation, if the captain gives the order… captain?"

The captain had seemed to have lost his energy for accusing the three robots. He seemed.. reluctant?

"No Auto…" the captain gave his order, "These are not the kinds of people that Shelby had told us were on the Cyan Marine. We are to let them go."

"But-"

"That is an ORDER!" The captain directed his glare on the steering wheel. "I don't remember you running the ship! Deactivate the guns now, and give the message to the other BnL ships; the Cyan Marine is not to be harmed!"

There was a stagnant silence for a good moment. The white wheel then "nodded".  
"It shall be done Captain." The Autopilot spoke.

"Very well," the captain smiled and saluted to the trio, "Cyan Marine, you are now free in our space, good luck!"

The transmission cut off. Mage and Sae let out sighs of relief. It was cut off as the "protopilot" spoke again.

"Incoming-Data"

On the other screen akin to the one the protopilot used for speaking, a list of data began to spill in. SAE dropped MAGE and began to immediately record the data that was scrolling across the screen.

"Oi, give me a warning next time will ya?" Mage griped as she righted herself. "What is that stuff?"

"It's our registration for the BnL fleet." Sae said happily, "It's to show that we're okay in their territories. Lets see…."

Ship's Classification: Ally

Ship's Make: Cyan Marine

Ship's Captain: MAGE-Class Robot

Ship's Autopilot: OTUA

"Bummer, I'm not on the list…" Sae said disappointedly.

"Never mind that!" Mage seemed preoccupied, "What's with the word OTUA?"

"Eh…" Sae was even puzzled, "Typo?"

-No… I believe that is the name that the Captain has given me… I see that it is his Autopilots name spelled backwards… the exact opposite….-

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"Why do you keep letting that get under your skin so much?" Mage tried to reason with the protopilot. "Just because Auto lives in a shinier ship and has more bells and whistles doesn't mean he's any better than you."

-It's just….-

"No arguing!" Sage took Mage's side. "Otua, you really need to drop it all. Like Mage said, it's been several centuries since that snotty Autopilot talked smack about you; I bet that he's getting his dues."

-But…-

MAGE sighed with a hint of irritation, "Look Otua, it's almost been twelve hours since we all started up, I say we shut down for the night… we can talk about this pity party later."

And without further argument, the little robot dashed out of the room. Sae wasn't sure what to do in the situation. Obviously Otua was troubled, but she wasn't sure how to handle the problem. Thankfully, she was answered before she started.

-I think Mage is right.. I believe that I am fatigued. Maybe a few hours of sleep mode will be able to knock these bad memories out of my system for awhile. Good night Sae-

Sae didn't know what to say to the sudden hush. But agreeing with Otua seemed to be the best solution.

"Good night to you to Otua…." She began to roll out of the room. As she was in the doorway, she looked over her shoulder; Otua's blue eye was already dimmed, an obvious sign of sleep mode.

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Dark bleak blue lined the walls. Streams of a deeper shade of blue ran along the edges of the room… what was this place? She looked around curiously. Where was she? She felt her heart pounding; something was wrong.

Heart pounding?

She looked down at herself and her jaw (jaw?) dropped. She was human! Or, at least, somewhat human. She could still only see in blue hues. And she felt an unbalance in her shoulders. Looking down at her left arm, she found it replaced loosely by the small heat cannon that would have been her left handle. She admired herself in awe for a moment before someone broke the silence.

"You think you are better now?" it was a voice she knew all too well.

"A-Auto?" she choked, she was amazed that she could speak without limitation.

"Yes, it is me…" Otua turned around to face the white and black wheel. His red eye was glaring right at her.

"Wh-what… why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" Auto repeated, "You are unfit to exist. You shouldn't exist…"

"Just because I don't have the functions you do.." she became alarmed, "Does that already make me unable to function? Unable to live?"

"You are unable to live. It was only because of Mage and Sae that you are still alive. You were going to melted down to join the rest of your brothers and sisters. "

"B-but.." she was having trouble finding a voice," Just because… "

"There are no excuses." Auto cut her off, "There are only rules. You have broken all the rules in this game of machinery. Not to mention you relied on robots that are just as faulty as you are."

"LEAVE THEM OUT OF THIS!" She shouted back, "They saved my life!"

"Life… machines have no life. We are here for the sake of man, for the sake of man's survival."

"Bullocks!" Otua almost tripped over herself as she ran up to Auto, "I live for the sake of myself and my friends!"

"Perhaps then, you will enjoy this part of living then; it is called pain." Auto seemed to develop a sarcastic tone to his otherwise monotone voice. Otua saw her superior's right handle open and with sudden quickness he jabbed his tazer arm into the core upon her torso.

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Otua hit her head as she started up. If she were human, she would have been hyperventilating. She looked around the room. There was no one on the control deck. That was right; Mage and Sae had already gone and shut down for the night. She could feel her feather handles shaking uncontrollably; she could hear the unkempt metal of her shell creaking from her shivers.

Nightmares… she seemed to have them a lot lately.


	3. The Message

For the following days, both Sae and Mage realized that Otua was having trouble with simple processes. Her output time and calculating were sometimes off. For a while, Mage was scared that Otua was suffering from Fragmentation, but analysis showed that nothing was wrong with her operating systems. Otua wouldn't even speak about the current problems; it was always one of the other two that had to bring it up first.

Sae remembered actually being woken up one night by a sudden blast of sound coming from the bridge. Trying not to make a sound, she rolled down the hall and peered inside; she saw Otua shaking violently in place, almost as if she were malfunctioning. It didn't take long for the teacher bot to realize that this was almost occurring every night. And she soon discovered that they weren't malfunctions; Otua was having nightmares of some kind.

9999999999999999999999999999999999999

"What do you think we should do?" Sae asked. She and Mage were in their on little resting quarters; the place where they went where they went into sleep mode for the night. "She's never acted this way before..."

"I guess it just finally caught up with her," even Mage was out of ideas. "I've tried everything, but I'm too scared that if I try and do anything drastic, she might break down."

"You know..." Sae suddenly had an idea, "in our journeys, we've only been outside the Cyan Marine.. have we ever combed this ship inside and out?"

"Well, aside from the occasional rummage and that Nintendo Bii 3000 we found, no." Mage didn't see the relevance in the question, "Why do you ask?"

"Perhaps.... there's something on the ship that we could use to fix Otua, or at least get her over her spell..."

Mage's eyes lit up "That's actually a pretty good idea. Come to think of it, there are a lot of rooms in this place. There must be something we could use...."

Before they could continue talking, the computer monitor on the wall flickered to life. Otua's text began to type itself out hastily.

-You two, I can hear your conversations. There... there is nothing wrong with my programming. Do not worry yourselves about it-

"Don't play innocent Otua" Mage turned away from the screen as she spoke, "we know that's something is up, don't you care that we're at least trying to get you running right?"

-I told you again, nothing is wrong with me-

"A few weeks ago you were saying that you felt sad," Sae lifted herself off the ground and picked up Mage, "And we care enough about you to see if we can change that, maybe there is something that someone left here.... just.." she wasn't good speaking with the screen, not even after all the time they spent together. "Just hang tight, we'll come back in a few hours."

And with that, Sae rolled out of the room.

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What was this feeling she had? Was it frustration? Nonsense, Auto said that machines didn't have feelings. She wasn't able to comprehend what Mage and Sae were doing. Were they upset because she wasn't efficient enough? No... that wasn't it. It was something else...

But she wasn't able to understand it! She cursed her limited sense of understanding things outside of maintaining the Cyan Marine. She wanted to know what these things she were feeling was. She wanted to know what she was made for, other than just shipping the humans into space.

Mage and Sae had stuck with her all this time.... there must have been something....

In her confusion, Otua went into sleep mode; this was too much on her circuits.

999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

"Any luck?" Sae upturned a crate as the two combed the cluttered cargo deck. It was full of boxes from the trips that the ship had taken back and forth in it's journey. Some were full of odds and ends, others strangely empty. Mage blamed the empty ones on pilferers who had come in before she had.

"I got nothing...." Mage poked her head into a smaller crate. It seemed that their search would be fruitless. After all, almost 700 years in space, and never even bothering to search the ship? They must have at some point. Rummaging around she shoved aside several cubes that for some reason had pink hearts on them. As she shoved one she felt a rattle from inside. "Hey... Sae! come over here!"

The taller robot rolled over and peered down at the bird. "You find something?"

"Yeah, this cube sounds like it has something inside, listen" Mage hit the box, and sure enough there was a rattle from inside. Mage started prying at the box and hitting it more, but the thing wouldn't give way. "It's like a cryptex or something. Maybe we should try writing APPLE on it or something."

"Mage, don't be silly," Sae rolled her eyes, "You've been reading the Da Vinci Code one too many times."

"Doesn't help you don't have the best music OR movies downloaded into those speakers and drives they gave you." Mage snapped back, "A little help?"

Sae picked the box up and shook it. She stood looking at it for a few moments. Mage thought she had lost it, when suddenly Sae slammed the box on the ground and it imploded in on itself.

"I see that once again I had to show you how it's done..." Sae said smugly.

"Don't rub it in," Mage grumbled, "Lets just see what's inside." Picking through the remains of the box, she found something wrapped in cloth. Carefully unwrapping it, she discovered an extremely old and frail piece of paper inside; she took a quick picture with her eye cam in case the thing turned to dust.

"What does it say?'

"It says...." Mage squinted, "Well, the first half is in English. It says 'Type this into the autopilots command drive' and then it's a bunch of numbers"

"Numbers?" Sae was confused, "The command drive only takes letters though, why is it numbers?"

"Er... 243 2253 47 2 543" ..... Mage turned the paper on its side, then upside down, then diagonally, then turned the paper completely around, "They look like numbers no matter how you look at it! Unless...."

"Unless.....?"

"If this thing was written when the Cyan Marine was made, these numbers could mean something else...."

"Mage... you're letting The Da Vinci Code get to you again..."

"I'm serious!" Mage snapped, "Quick! Sae, what else used numbers besides computers?"

"Hmm..." Sae's eyes lit up , "Telephones!"

"Exactly, and for certain calls, 26 letters of the alphabet were assigned to certain numbers...." She shoved the now flaking scrap of paper into Sae's face. "Quick! start analyzing!"

"Fine fine..." the teacher bot leered at the numbers; taking into account the numbers; she was programmed with almost limitless information about the human civilization, it was just a long time since she had to call back on the data. After a few moments of having her mind scan the best answers, she arrived at one particular answer. "Uh oh..."

"UH OH?!" Mage hollered, almost destroying the paper on accident. "You're a teacher! You're not supposed to go 'Uh oh'!"

"You're not going to like what I found to be the answer...." Sae became a little anxious.

"As long as it's not 42, and as long as we don't have to deal with talking mice that want to cut our circuits out, I think I won't go into hysterics"

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"WHAT?!" Mage was in hysterics. Otua wasn't able to contemplate what she was screaming about, she was only watching Sae type something into her programming. "It has to be a gag, or something!" Mage tugged haplessly at Sae's treads

"Ready Otua? It seems that this code will do something for you..." Sae hit the enter button. There was a small beep. and then silence. Otua looked down at the keyboard, she wasn't able to read one of the words, only "the ---- is a lie" there was a continuous silence. Until the BnL logo appeared behind them on the projector screen. (Which caused Mage to scream like a little girl.)

But the BnL logo became monochromatic. And then started to shift into a circle shaped icon.

"What's that?" even Sae didn't recognize the symbol.

"It's an Aperture." Otua said without thinking, "It's part of a camera."

"H-hey!" Mage came to realize what was going on, "Otua! You spoke! You.. you're speaking like us!"

"Wha-" Otua cut herself off through mid sentence, "Wait... I... I am speaking..."

"Is this thing on?" A voice rang from the projector. It was a woman, with a thick South African accent. "You screwed it up again!"

"Stop blamming me for once." A computerized voice that sounded exactly like Otua's rang out from the screen.

The screen changed from the Aperture Lens to a radio and some cans of beans on a shelf. There was a scuffle as the two voices fought off screen, much to the trio's amusement.

"Anyway," the human spoke again, with the camera still centered on the radio, "It seems that we're having difficulty with the camera. But we'll fix that later. The important thing is, is that you found the upgrade left on the ship for your Autopilot"

"We assume that only people with love and care in their hearts were deemed most responsible for flying the Cyan Marine." the computer spoke, "As a dutiful captain, you must have found this upgrade while cleaning your beloved ship."

"Now you're assuming too much," the human spoke again, "Anyway, in actuality, we knew that Shelby Forthwright was a jerk, and we hid the upgrades for the Cyan Marine all over this one flag ship. We knew that he'd later find out what we were doing and terminated both of us from the next autopilot program. Even though your Autopilot will not be as efficient as the ones on the star liners, I think you'll find that yours will be much more special once you find all the upgrades. Take it from the two of us. If there is one thing we do, we do it."

"Because we can," the computer picked up, "for the good of all of us."

"Except the ones who are dead" they said together.

The projector turned off, and upon the screen above the radar, a small "Download Complete" blinked in neon green. The trio stood stupefied for a moment; not knowing exactly what to think.

"Who were those two?" Mage asked curiously, breaking the silence.

"I think.... I think... we weren't able to see them but.." Otua struggled with her new voice, "I think those two were my creators...."

"What makes you say that?" Sae seemed a bit dubious on the situation. "It could have been a prank."

"I... I don't know..." Otua seemed lost in thought, "I.. I just know... and... it can't be a prank.. I am talking just like you two are..."

"True," Mage agreed, "Not to mention the robot in that video sounds exactly like you as well.... and.... well.... golly," she let her wings rest at her side, "I thought I was fooling myself, but I guess there WAS something left for you on the ship after all."

Otua felt a rising warmth in her core. She felt happy at the turn of events. Her companions had cared for her. And their compassion led to the discovery that her creators both had despised the very man who tried to kill her. They were probably long gone now, but it didn't matter. She didn't feel empty at all. For the first time, in what could have been the first time entirely in her existence....

She felt happy.


	4. The Updates

In the days that followed, Sae and Mage began to scour the ship in search of other clues and data pods. Their search turned up two new codes. One of them was found in the lower bunker of the engine room, and another in the hydraulics for the two spike fins. The strange thing about the first of the new codes was that it was already translated out of its numeric code. Perhaps the two creators of Otua had taken sympathy on whoever was the one to modify her. Mage wasn't objecting; she knew that had they been humans, they probably would have given up trying to solve the first riddle as soon as they found it.

After prying the capsule from the hydraulics to the red fin, Mage brushed off the excess rust her wings gathered from rummaging in the nooks and crannies.

"Two codes in one day" Mage was proud of her and Sae's accomplishment. "I really wish those two had given us the total of how many to find though."

"True," Sae took the capsule from Mage's wing, "And put them in places easier to find."

"If they had been easy to find, we would have found these things a long time ago" Mage hopped down from her perch and joined her comrade. "No use whining about it now, at least it gives us something to do, not to mention clean the ship in the meantime..."

"Clean the ship..." Sae thought to herself. Maybe the two creators knew that the Cyan Marine would have left earth and stayed in commission this long?

The two of them started their trek back to the command room. Sae began mulling over their journeys together. And then she began to realize why Otua was feeling so bad. She was always left behind whenever they landed on a planet. Sure, she could see what they saw, for Sae had a televisor above her eyes that could connect to Otua's eye; but it wasn't the same. She could see and experience anything for herself. It was always her and Mage that did the trekking, did the true adventures. It's not like they neglected Otua, the old computer systems they found by the humans who decided to leave their trinkets on board amused all three of them, although Otua was always somewhat slower at things than they were.

Sae was lost thinking about the past so much she almost rolled by the command bridge. Stopping abruptly and almost doubling over, she quickly rolled into the room. Mage seemed bemused by something. What it was was made clear; Otua was looking outside at the stars and humming to herself. She swayed a little back and forth; almost as if she were on a swing set.

"Erm, Otua..."

"Oh!" Otua was caught of guard as she quickly stopped her swaying and turned in place. "I-I didn't hear you two come in.... is there something else you found?"

"Managed to find two more," Mage tossed the two capsules to Sae, "seems as soon as we knew what we were looking for, they started falling into our hands."

"What makes you so sure that they're new updates?" Otua lowered herself slightly to get a better look at the two objects.

"They both have that Aperture symbol on them, you know, what the BnL logo had turned into before those two started speaking." Sae unscrewed the first one, a small empty can fell out. Rolling it over in her hands, she displayed the words written on the can. 'I do what I must because I can - type in - Flaming Rhubarb Sediment' was neatly written on it. "I don't get it though, why is this one written with letters? After the deal with the first code, you think they'd make them harder..."

"And not.... confusing" Otua obviously couldn't display emotion well, but the others could tell that she was a bit dubious at this new update, "Flaming Rhubarb Sediment? Is that their idea for a file name?"

"Either that, or the first update was not only a voice and speech enhancer, but also gave you a wider range of vocabulary." Mage guessed, "Maybe, if we found this one first, your computer would have registered it as garbage data and would have expelled it."

"It's like you've got a bunch of locks on you," Sae began to see what Mage meant, "we have to open them in the correct order, or else your limited computer will just spit the updates back out."

"My creators sure went to a lot of trouble to make it hard to update me...." Otua sighed, "It's almost like they don't want me updated."

"Don't think that way Otua..." Sae pat her on her core, "here, lets type this code in and see what we get...."

Like before, Sae typed in the code, and once again there were a few beeps that emitted from the command deck. The Aperture symbol appeared again, and the camera phased in. For a tense moment, the three thought they were going to see who the two creators where, but were rewarded by seeing some familiar cubes with pink hearts on them and Santa hats placed upon them.

"Oh for the love of-" the woman's voice was heard again, "You got the camera stuck on the companion cube room!"

"Well excuse me," The computer shot back, "I thought we were going to cover updates and not be modeling ourselves?"

"Just because you're a little rusty in the brain doesn't give you the right to be screwing up the camera..." the woman sighed. "Well, you are right. Hello again! If you're listening to this recording, it means that you've found our second of 10 upgrades!"

"Thank goodness," Mage gave a sigh of relief, "We know how many there are now."

"This one will be able to make the ship run better, there is also further vocabulary enhancement, as well as the modules for AI feelings." The computer voice stated, "Your Autopilot will become a better companion, and a trusted friend along your journey, please take good care of it. Remember, the Autopilot will always want what is best for you, and will never threaten to stab you."

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

".... was it completely necessary to say that?" The woman said irritably.

"I thought they could use a laugh."

The message and screen cut out right after the computer made its smart comment. Mage and Sae looked at one another with puzzled looks.

"Those two must be married; they fight all the time." Mage ruffled her wings. "How did the updates go Otua?"

"There are more word banks in this update than the one before, and the modules the computer talked about are installed," Otua swayed in place, "I can feel their warmth in the code."

Sae feigned a yawn and stretched. Despite it being timeless on the ship, the constant searching for new updates and what not left the teacher-bot exhausted. "I say we call it quits again, the next update should wait until tomorrow, we don't want to cause an overload now do we?" she rolled out of the room without hesitation, leaving a slightly confused Mage and Otua.

"Otua.. she's not upset or anything, just tired..." Mage tried to console the protopilot.

"I know, I know, searching the ship is taxing on both of you," there seemed to be a slight indentation of an accent in Otua's voice now, "I think you should rest too Mage."

"Well," Mage let her wings go lax, "If you say so." and with that, the little robot putted out of the room.

99999999999999999999999999999999

Sae was already in her sleep mode position; her arms and head tucked into her body and her legs were tucked in above her treads. She was still on, as was shown by her eyes looking back at Mage.

"Really that tired?" Mage hovered over and sat down next to her fellow teacher."You were spunky a moment ago.."

"It's nothing." Sae answered, "I'm just tired from all this searching... not to mention.. Just think about it Mage. There was a secret on this ship and we never discovered it! We traveled the entire galaxy, and all the time there was something that could have made Otua feel more accepted right under our noses!"

"That's the way things work..." Mage gave a sigh, "Hey... how long has it been since you used your ear speakers?"

Sae was caught off guard by the sudden question, "Er... a year, why?"

"I say you play some music or something.. lord knows I could sleep to some sounds again.. got anything in your tracks that would do the trick?"

"Hmm...." Sae became lost in thought as she had before, "hmmm, I think I found something fitting..."

"Play it then.." Mage nuzzled against Sae, "lets have some peace and quiet now..."

Static sounded for a moment, then suddenly soft beats played through the room.

-Fade out into velvet....

Nothing more to say

You're my favorite moment....

you're my Saturday.....-

99999999999999999999999999999999

Otua could hear the music softly resonating through the passageway. She felt relaxed by the soft beats; she could recognize the song now by actually words.

"Goldfrapp..." she said out loud to herself, "Good choice tonight Sae..." she lazily rocked back in forth in tune to the music. She felt more at peace than usual... and....

She peered down at the floor, Sae had left the other capsule on the ground. Using her right handle she outstretched it; hearing the creaks come from the ancient mechanics within her. She stretched herself out as far as possible and let her clawed arm try to grasp the other capsule. It was a trial and error, almost like a claw game, she was becoming frustrated with the way her claw wasn't able to clench the bottle. Finally, after a few moments trying she was able to grab it. Otua retracted her arm and extended her left handle. Where tazers and other weaponry were on Autopilots, Otua had a small short range gun, she let the tip heat up with energy and melted the top of the bottle off. Waiting a few moments, she let her left handle cool and turned around to face the bridge. She dumped the contents onto the desk and clumsily unfurled the new clue with her mismatched handles.

'Type the next sentence into the command module - Twenty Three is Number One, a traitor I will never be as long as I shall exist'

Before she typed in the code, she remembered how loud the creators had been in their previous message. She quickly silenced the main room and typed in the new code.

Instead of displaying on the command screen, it was now being shown in her eye. She saw the Aperture symbol, which then cut to a big red button.

"Let me guess," Otua tingled as she heard her creator speak, "You messed up the Camera again didn't you?"

"Look, I'm sorry." The computer said, this time with actual sympathy in their voice, "it's not my fault that those numskulls installed a million cameras in this place"

Otua giggled at her creators. These were the people she would have liked to have met before she became the flag ship.

"Anyway, looks like you found another update." the human spoke up again "This update'll give the Autopilot more memory and a better run capacity, not to mention a few new features. Such as better mobility in it's wheel and arms. It also will enable the gun to fire a laser bolt if charged pro- hey wait a minute, you gave the Autopilot a weapon patch?"

"I thought it'd be a better gift than what you were giving them." the computer said matter of factly, "A Peter Gabriel track?"

"Well.. I think that it'd be a good thing for the autopilot would have some recreation... you know, some easy listening."

"Oh, fine.." the computer replied, "Well, good luck until you find the next capsules, see you soon!"

The screen cut off. The message was done; Otua wondered what Peter Gabriel was until she detected new information. Accessing it, she found a frame within her that asked to play the selected data. Almost at once her inner core resonated with a gentle melody it was so lovely... the lights in her room began to dim, and she closed the doors and began to drift off into sleep.

-Did you think that your feet had been bound  
By what gravity brings to the ground?  
Did you feel you were tricked  
By the future you picked?  
Well, come on down-

Mage blinked a few times, she swore she heard something. maybe it was just her imagination. She nuzzled up again against her comrade and sighed.

-All those rules don't apply  
When you're high in the sky  
So, come on down  
Come on down-

Back on Earth, a small lonely robot rolled along the deserted remains of a city. He looked to the stars; wondering what was out there. His cricket friend chirped enthusiastically.

-We're coming down to the ground  
There's no better place to go  
We've got snow up on the mountains  
We've got rivers down below-

The Autopilot sighed. Another boring day, and another boring night. He was appalled by what the human race had evolved into. But the only thing he could do now was to keep order and control over all of them. He would wait.

-We're coming down to the ground  
We hear the birds sing in the trees  
And the land will be looked after  
We send the seeds out in the breeze-

Otua finally drifted off into a world unplagued by nightmares.


	5. The Landing

In almost two months Earth time, Mage and Sae had scoured the ship for the other clues and updates that the two creators had left behind. The updates were steadily becoming more patches; mostly new personality and intelligence drives and music tracks for the protopilot. And just like all the message videos beforehand. Both creators kept screwing up and having the camera focus on anything BUT them. Aside from the Radio, Heart Boxes, and the Red Button, there were many other odd things. Sometimes the camera would be centered on a table with mugs, and then on others it'd be focused on some rusty unkempt room and other various things. The trio was bemused with the fact that the creators were still unable to fix the problem. Now that they were on their ninth update, the camera was now focused on some graffiti that seemed to have been written in charcol and red paint.

"Hey," The woman started the message off, "You have a camera in here?"

"They're all over the place," The computer replied irritably, "Are we going to continue to talk about the camera, or are we going to talk about the update?"

"I guess you are right... Hello again Captain in question!" She directed herself at whomever was listening in, "Well, sorry for the bad news, but this is just another memory expansion for the Autopilot, like the last two before this one. We're enabling the autopilot to have as much memory as possible for the final data update. Although..." the voice trailed off for a moment, "You'll be hard pressed to find it. You've got to search for it, and might even need help from the last message ever left."

"Another riddle?" the computer asked the human creator, "You're becoming more fond of them than I am."

"Listen up captain." the woman seemed void of her usual humor, "There was a Override Directive that was given to all other Autopilots sans this one. If you can find that Directives name, enter it into the Autopilot, and the whereabouts of the last update shall be unlocked. Good luck... and thank you for sticking through all of this."

The message cut off. The three were off put by this new piece of information.

"So let me get this straight... " Mage tried to figure out the message left for them, "There was a directive sent to all Autopilots, except Otua, since she's a protopilot. So all we need to do is find a BnL ship and...." Mage blinked stupidly.

"What's wrong Mage?" Sae nudged the smaller teacher bot. "What is it."

"This is nuts..." Mage shook her head. "Otua's probably thinking the same thing I am.."

"The fact that we need Autopilot technology in order to enable my final programming," Otua spoke for Mage, "Almost as if.... it's like learning from your peers. That's all I have been doing this entire time with you. I wasn't... I wasn't able to learn fully from it. But now, thanks to you too... you have been enabling me to learn more than ever. You are my teachers... you always have been... and now the Autopilots will be too." Otua didn't know what was coming over her. The last few installments had given her a strange sense of growth. She didn't know how it was to feel human, but she knew what she was now. She was a growing child. Her mentors were watching over her. And now it was time to learn from the ones who came after her. She might be the first ever made, but she was inevitably going to learn from her "children".

"The only problem now is getting onto a BnL ship," Mage replied, "Not to mention there must have been a gazillion directives and updates for Autopilots by now.. we'll be hard pressed to find the exact one..."

The situation did look bleak. But the other teacher bot had a revelation, "Hey, wait a minute.. the BnL ship that we had encountered so long ago... you know, the one with the white Autopilot? The one that Otua got her name from! I bet we could get a friendly docking with them! And whoever is in charge must at LEAST keep records saying that we're okay to dock with them. Maybe they'll even let Otua pair up with their Autopilot and we can find the files."

"That's assuming if that ship is still working," Mage responded, "Or keeps archives."

"Well, the creators said that the directives were sent to all autopilots..." Otua tried helping out in the guestimation, "even though I don't want to get help from him, I think the only sure way to get the answer is to speak with Auto... of..." Otua paused to rescan her memory, "Auto of the Axiom."

"Axiom..." Mage scratched her chin, "That means 'Law and Order' in some language.... well, we can't go wrong with that, I say we check 'em o-"

But the bird was cut off as something lazily sped by. It was a sleek tripod-like ship that was stark white. As it passed the command bridge, the three were able to see the BnL logo stamped on the side of it. Like out of a slap stick cartoon the three watched it continue to sail by, before they (sans Otua) blinked in unison and all panicked hitting buttons and switches in desperation to get the Cyan Marine on course after the ship.

9999999999

After a few swear words, several threats, and a laser blast from Otua, the Cyan Marine was now on full course with the BnL ship. As they trailed along behind it, Mage found it odd that it did not send back a transmission or tell it to back off. It didn't even fire any warning shots when the Cyan Marine accidentally bumped into it once. Soon their regular vision was blurred as the two ships passed through a large purple nebulae. For a good hour, almost nothing was visible. Otua was only staying on the BnL ship's trail by using the primitive sonar system she had when the Cyan Marine was originally a sub.

At last the clouds parted , the trio let out collective gasps of awe.

Mostly because they hadn't taken in the ship's splendor so many centuries ago (being shot at and all) they were now humbled as the giant form of the Axiom dwarfed the BnL ship and their own craft. The large cruiser still glistened as if she had been commissioned yesterday. Otua cringed; she only could imagine how the Cyan Marine looked from the outside. As they followed the smaller ship, Otua noticed a dock hangar opening up for the BnL ship. Quickly realizing that the hangar would never fit both ships, Otua piloted their ship slightly above the other and did a maneuver that made the ship gently rest on the outer hull of the Axiom; directly above the hangar doors. Against the Axiom, the Cyan Marine almost looked like a remora attached to a great whale. And that wasn't far from the truth.

"Now assimilating the Cyan Marine with the body in question..." Otua activated a part of the ship they had only used a few times before to board other spacecraft. There was a grinding of metal as part of the floor began to twist and turn, before forming a portal that would enable them to drop down into the Axiom. It was almost like a hatch that the Cyan Marine could make against any metal. (Otua then realized that this technology must have been made by her creators for part of the Cyan Marine.)

Mage peered down the hole; already she was troubled. "Otua... Sae... I don't see any humans in there.. I only see what looks like a freeway of robots!" And indeed she was right, the floor they were on was full of nothing but robots dashing back and forth between different doors and stairwells.

"This does seem rather odd..." Sae observed the robots as well, "Maybe we should jump down and see what's up ourselves...."

"Always a good idea," Otua agreed, "I'll keep watch up here, if you need to get back in, contact me, I'll shut the portal as soon as you jump out."

"Fine with me," Mage putted up, "We'll scan the place and get to the command bridge. Hopefully we can pry some answers out of the Autopilot. Hang tight Otua! We'll be back!" Mage hopped down onto the floor below. Sae saluted the protopilot and gave a knowledgeable nod before she too jumped down; causing a great crash of metal.

Otua could feel herself cringing as she shut the portal. For some reason the protopilot knew this wasn't going to be an easy mission.

She was right.


	6. The Problem

The two quickly righted themselves and ran out of the way of the busy robots. Mage and Sae had never seen so many robots flying back and forth before. In any of their journeys it was usually the organic lifeforms that outnumbered the machines. Why was it that it seemed that the robots had taken over the Axiom? Where were all the people?

"This is weird.." Mage watched the never ending traffic of robots. "It's like a race car rally, where are they all going?"

"Lets try asking someone," Sae rolled out to the side of the street. In vain she tried to stop several fellow robots. For a few moments of nothing interesting occurring, Mage finally snapped and jumped into the street.

"Hey idiots!" she waved her wings "We're talking to you!"

What happened next was a giant crash of metal and other various things as Mage caused a pile up on the "road". The only thing that Sae could do given the situation was sigh and shake her head. Mage didn't seem bothered by the accident she had caused, instead she pulled a VAQ-M out of the wreckage and slapped it a bit. "Hey, you mind telling us what's going on here?" she was rewarded by a sneeze and a face of dust and soot. Rubbing her face Mage realized what she had done.

"Nice going Mage," Sae gave out another heavy sigh, "You broke the whole gaggle of these robots..."

Sae was right, from the group of banged up bots came mindless chatter and crackles of electricity. The two backed away; uncertain of what to do.

"Well... any other bright ideas Mage?"

"Not exactly..." The little bird was quite distressed. It was only going to get worse.

"HALT" came an authoritative voice from behind them. They turned to see a robot shaped like a tower. It had a siren upon it's head that was flashing, and a huge screen projected on it's torso of the "Stop hand" sign. Mage and Sae didn't know what to make of this new robot.

"Errr.." Mage looked from the pile of broken robots and then back to the tower one. "Um, It was like this when we got here! Really!" Mage grabbed Sae's arm and began to hover away, "If you don't mind us, we'll be going now...."

"WRONG" The robot quickly stood in Mage's way.

"Hey buddy!" Mage attempted to shove the robot to the side, "Mind letting us go?"

"Mage..." Sae leaned down and whispered, "I don't think you've been making the best choices since we've stepped out of the Cyan Marine...."

"She's right," Mage heard Otua speak through Sae's forehead speakers, "it seems that as soon as I let you out of my sight you throw all rules out the window."

"Now's not the time time to lecture me Otua!" Mage mumbled as she tried to walk around the tower robot, "I'm trying to deal with this guy, and he's more difficult to deal with than anything!"

"That robot is a Steward Mage, he won't let you go anywhere if you have done something wrong.... You did something wrong didn't you?" Otua seemed to have a mocking attitude.

"Otua...." Mage growled, "forget it," she ruffled her wings and gave a motion to Sae, "Sae, you're going to have to separate from me for awhile... I'll deal with this guy and you can try to get to the bridge."

"But Mage..." Sae seemed reluctant given the dilemma.

"No buts, you've got Otua with you at least, now go!" Mage shoved Sae and then flung herself at the Steward. Not turning to look back, Sae quickly rolled into the mass transit to hide from the steward. Meanwhile, Mage continued her assault on the Steward, causing quite a scene until she felt herself being lifted off against her will and being suspended in mid air by a red tractor beam.

"Whoa what the-" rolling in mid air Mage stopped while upside down. She saw a robot about her height who was the one with the new tractor beam. It also had a siren on its head. "Let me go you over sized squiggly pen!" The bird chirped angrily. As if just to make life even more stressing, the smaller robot dropped her right on her head.

"Drop!" The smaller robot said in a snooty voice. Mage righted herself and gave the smaller robot a slap.

"Mind not on my head?" Mage snapped as she scowled at the other robot. Suddenly, since the Steward seemed preoccupied with the broken pile of robots, and the squiggly pen robot somewhat dazed from her slap, Mage saw this as the opportune time to escape as well. Before the smaller robot could come to terms with what had happened, Mage was already long gone. Although she was running the exact opposite way that Sae had gone.

9999999999999999999999999999999999999999

Sae had found a less busy corridor than the one that the portal had dropped them into. She stopped to catch her senses and to relay back to Otua the situation.

"I'm not surprised that Mage got herself into trouble." Otua sighed, "But... now that we're in a clearing, I can at least scan the area around you and find out a way out of this area."

"Sure..." Sae rolled over to a niche in the wall and stood still while Otua processed her surroundings. As she waiting for an answer, she saw a small fleet of stewards roll past her. They were most likely heading over to the pile up Mage had caused. She then heard a smaller siren and saw the small squiggly pen robot zoom past her in the other direction. What was going on here? Peering out from her hiding space, Sae noticed that the entire hallway was now deserted.

"I'm done Sae," Otua spoke through her top speakers, "There is an elevator about several doors down the way you're looking right now, I suggest taking that elevator coast is clear.

"It is Otua," Sae kept a look out , "how far down is it?"

"Just a few doors," Otua said again, "Lets go before you loose the chance."

Acting on her friend's words Sae quickly rolled down the hallway and quickly found the elevator. "What now Otua?"

"Floor 3" Otua said hastily.

The teacher bot pushed the button for floor three and rolled in quickly. Just when she thought that she was in the clearing, the doors opened again and the squiggly pen robot and a SER-V carrying what looked like a large white egg came inside. Sae's eyes widened and she stood at attention; trying not to be too conspicuous. The small robot "looked" at her curiously.

"Have I seen you somewhere before?" he said in his little twerpy voice.

"Oh, no, not at all..." Sae tried to cover for herself; Otua remained quiet.

There was an akward silence as they waited in the elevator together. As it began it's climb, Sae felt something touch her threads. She looked down to see the small robot leaning on her and had and outstretched little arm resting on her threads.

"Where're you from?" he looked up with his single camera eye, "You seemed lost sugar."

Otua would have bit her tongue to keep from laughing. Sae's eyes budged and she looked down somewhat unbelieving of the situation she was in. "Sugar? Excuse me?"

"Allow me to introduce myself," the little robot extended his other arm out and gave a slick wave (well, as much as a small robot such as himself could manage) "My name's GO-4, what's yours babe?"

"Uh... my name's Sae.." the teacher bot was confused; 700 plus years of activation and this sort of thing had never happened to her. "Er, GO-4, why are you acting so.... odd?"

"Who said I'm actin' odd?" GO-4 replied as he began to circle the SER-V carrier, "My question is why haven't you fallen for my good looks yet... well... this is my stop, looks like you're getting off here too."

The doors parted. Sae was awestruck; the entire floor was actually a giant metropolis. There were skyscrapers everywhere, and she could see what looked like people in the distance. GO-4 gave a wave to Sae, "See you around" he said gleefully as he used his little arm to blow a kiss. Rolling out of the elevator, Sae was teed off at the recent events.

"I see you have an admirer Sae..." Otua said with a hint of a giggle, "you should consider yourself lucky."

"I'll consider myself lucky when we reunite with Mage and get that directive code." Sae retorted.

As Sae and Otua continued talking, the teacher bot didn't realize the elevator had gone down, and then came back up. Hearing the elevator ding, Sae turned to see who it was; hoping it was Mage.

What she got instead was a small little dirty yellow robot. He rolled out from the elevator and looked up at Sae with his big curious eyes.

"Er... Hello." Sae waved back; not knowing what speaking to this little guy would accomplish.

The robot waved back, "Wall-eeeeee" he said, obviously introducing himself.

"Uh.. Sae." she pointed to herself.

"Eeeeee-vvaaaaah?" The robot asked.

Not exactly understanding what he wanted, Sae guessed he was asking about the egg thing that GO-4 was carrying with him.

"Umm.. that way." Sae pointed off in the general direction GO-4 had gone.

The robot started off at once, although he stopped and waved goodbye to Sae. He then made an about face and rolled away.

"He seems to be... looking for something." Sae stated to Otua.

"A Wall-E was he?" Otua spoke again, "He was supposed to be an Earth robot, what is he doing here on the Axiom?"

"Well, it's our only lead," Sae shrugged and began to follow the dirt trail Wall-E had left behind, "Maybe he'll find something..."


	7. The Creators

"So I was told by Aperture Science that you two are the androids who are capable of making an AI for the ship?" Shelby was desperate for someone to fall back onto. Black Mesa was not cooperating with him, he, against his will, had to go to the second banana. Aperture Science was indeed a good company, but was not as famous as it's Black Mesa brethren. Although Shelby was instilled with a little bit of hope; Aperture Science said they would give him two of their smartest and capable androids that they had manufactured. In this day and age, robotics didn't need to be paid, they only had to be maintained. Looking down at the report slip, Shelby saw that his two clients were a recently distributed android named Chell, the other being older yet modified android with the extremely long name Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. (He hoped that the latter of the two had a nick name or something.)

And now he found himself in the meeting room, with the two in question looking at him. The first one, who he guessed was "Chell", was almost indistinguishable from a normal human being. She was given the appearance of someone from South America; dark skin and jet black hair, and was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Her partner, was obviously older; they had the very believable appearance of a human, but something about her was off. Shelby recognized her as a newer model of the "Keiko Okiek" android created in Japan several years ago. The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System had a lighter shade of blue for hair, and a completely white suit compared to her completely blue clad older model. She lacked the eye piece, but Shelby could see her eyes changing between the colors of blue, red, purple, and orange. (why these four colors he wasn't too sure) she seemed more intent on starring off into space rather than talk, as "Chell" was the first one to break the ice with the human.

"Yes," she replied, even her accent was exactly like a humans, "we are the best free labor that Aperture Science has available, myself, and GLaDOS," she motioned to the other android, "Will be able to do whatever designing and constructing for an AI that you want."

"Perfect," Shelby was pleased with the situation, "Now.. can you tell me what you had for an idea on the kind of ship that this AI would be piloting?"

"Fish shaped.." GLaDOS seemed to interject; her eyes turning blue and orange, "Several Fish shaped -"

"She means to say," Chell interrupted her (and even kicked her chair), "Is that the future lies in the ocean, the land might be bad. But I say that the oceans are vast, and very much untouched by mankind. I think if you let us work on a submersible unit for the human beings, you'll be able to stay here Earth indirectly while the Wall-E robot model that Buy and Large has been creating will be able to clear the trash"

"Before throwing the cubes into the emergency incinerator," GLaDOS finsihed her sentence.

"She's talking about the sun." Chell quickly covered.

Shelby could tell that his eyes were widening to the size of dinner plates; he was not objecting to Chell, she seemed normal, but the other one, whom Chell called "GLaDOS" (thankfully an acronym to her real name) was obviously a little bit off her rocker. But he figured that Chell would be able to keep a firm control on her partner. He had nothing else to go on.

"I see your exact point," Shelby decided to further the conversation, "Submarines would be the answer to the human race, and ... well, why not make them fish shaped?" he was trying to please them both, "You're both hired for this job, I'll make sure that you're kept up in the best conditions while you work on both the vehicle and the AI that will assist in piloting it."

"Will there be cake?" GLaDOS seemed to be off in her own little world.

"Cake...?" Shelby didn't know what to make of it.

"GLaDOS..." Chell gave out an exasperated sigh, "she knows that the project will be monitored, she wants it to be as low profiled as possible, if people in this company know that you got help from another company of all things, this would be the you-know-what hitting the fan."

Chell gave a good argument, "Well then," Shelby said, "What do you propose we do?"

"Open a bakery."

"A... bakery?" Shelby was even more confused.

"They shall be baked, and then there will be cake." GLaDOS said with a huge smile on her face.

"O... alright," Shelby quickly regained his composure, "I understand, the immediate plans for what you ask for shall be done, and I will give you two years to construct blue prints for both subjects I want done. Is that doable?"

"Yes it is," Chell gave a nod, "It was pleasure doing business with you Shelby Forthwright."

"Likewise." Shelby quickly gave his leave and left the two andriods, as he walked down the hallway he muttered, "Now I know why they were giving them away..."

Back in the room, Chell gave her companion a swift slap upside the head.

"Look what you've done!" she said angry.

"Wait.. what?" GLaDOS blinked and looked around, "Time out for a second.. what happened?"

"Don't tell me you were in SLEEP MODE the entire business talk!" Chell couldn't believe the predicament that they were in, "I had to cover for you the entire time! And instead of redeeming ourselves, we're now making a fish shaped submarine!"

"Was it worth it?" GLaDOS yawned and rubbed her eyes, "As long as we can get the things done, and give it to this Shelby guy, maybe our company won't be swallowed by that joke brand Buy and Large..."

"I hate Buy and Large as much as the next intellectual," Chell said softly, "which isn't saying much given the IQ of the average citizen nowadays."

"Well..." GLaDOS also seemed uncaring about the whole thing, "Life on this planet is dying, humanity is worse for wear, but some day, given our nature, we will look back on all of this, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh."

And Laugh..... and... laugh....and..................... laugh.......

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The stewards were patrolling the area; keeping an eye out for the strange bird robot that had caused the pile up on the main road system. It was given priority over everything else, the other security robots had never seen the robot in question before, it could be a potential threat. A trio of stewards were scanning an area together; not noticing the extremely noticeable card board box that was scurrying behind them. Hearing a noise, one of the stewards turned around, but the box remained motionless. Going back to their patrols, the box began to move again, feeling the same presence, the steward turned around and grabbed the box; levitating it into the air.

A rather bemused Mage was underneath, she had somehow found a way to tie a headband around her head. For some reason or another, a large exclamation point appeared over her head for a split second, before she zoomed off. The three stewards gave chase after the elusive bird, finally cornering her in a small outcrop where she was above them on a small niche in the wall; at such an angle that they were unable to grab her with their tractor beams. Seeing some refuse and scrap metal up in her roost, Mage started to throw the bits and baubles at the three stewards down below. "Yeah! Take that you dumb billboards!" despite the little projectiles having no effect on the stewards, Mage just found it satisfying to hit them.

Several minutes passed. The steward that was getting pelted by nuts and bolts was wondering how the bird was keeping up the pathetic assault. As if to answer his question, he saw the bird peek from her hiding space.

"Wanna know how I'm keeping this up?" she pointed at her bandanna, "Infinite Ammo!"

But after the joke she left herself wide open. The unamused steward promptly grabbed her in place and held her with it's tractor beam.

"Awww nuts.." Mage knew this was going to get ugly.

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Rolling across the blue road, Sae and Otua were both caught up in the sights around them. The "city" within the Axiom seemed fathomless, buildings stretched on, lights pulsed, and peo-

PEOPLE.

That was the one word of shock that went through both Otua and Sae's minds. 700 years of devolution on their part is what the two saw. If either of them had jaws they would be dropped in shock by what they saw. People.. for lack of words, looked more like freaky cabbage patch dolls now. All of them seemed to be cemented into chairs, and were completely immobile. Otua didn't know what was more troubling, the fact that humans looked like this, or the fact that the humans didn't care that they looked like this...

"Never mind this... unsettling distraction," Otua ushered Sae on, "Lets keep following the Wall-E"

Easier said than done, Sae thought to herself but at least there was a trail of bread crumbs, but in this case, a trail of dirt. The Wall-E kept putting forward; driven on by some sort of invisible force.

"What's so important about that egg that he'd leave Earth for it?" Sae asked aloud as she dodged a People Mover.

"I am not sure myself.. but I'm sure we'll find the answer soon."

The two were rewarded by their long trek as they saw GO-4 up ahead with the egg, and the Wall-E in hot pursuit. Sae quickly rolled into the gray building that they had gone into; and was met by pristine silence. A robot that seemed to be a secretary was clicking away bored at a keyboard; only looking up to give a nod to GO-4, who pulled the SER-V into an elevator. Not caring whether he had clearance or not, Wall-E putted along past the security bot and into the elevator as well. Before the doors closed, he gave a little wave to the secretary.

Sae was again greeted by silence. But Otua broke it in a sudden burst of glee.

"Sae... the bridge is above us." her voice seemed more happier than ever Sae had heard.

"Really?" Sae was a bit underwhelmed, "You think there would be... more security or something..." she rolled on ahead, bowed slightly to the secretary robot, and then took the elevator herself. Once again alone, the secretary looked down at it's little arms, and "waved" them like the yellow robot had done before it. It then lowered it's body into a kind of quasi bow. It might have been nothing to anyone else, but the secretary was amused that it had learned something rather new.

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In the elevator, Sae and Otua both were silent. The climb seemed to take forever; they climbed so high they could even see over the highest towers of the city. Sae felt her treads shake; she was always afraid of heights.

"Relax Sae," Otua tried to console her friend despite her excitement,"We're almost there."

As if on cue, a ding sounded in the elevator, and the doors opened. And what greeted them was a very loud computerized shout of frustration.

"IT'S GONE!!"


	8. The Ward

Caught helplessly within their tractor beams, Mage couldn't do much except call the stewards names and other things unmentionable in this story. The group of stewards kept her locked in their grip as they made their way down several levels. Not taking into account how dangerous the situation was, Mage kept up her insults. She was so intent on throwing slurs at the stewards that she was caught off guard when she was thrown down with a great force. Wondering why her captors released her, Mage tried to rush at them, but was bumped back by a force field. Taking in her new surroundings, the bird bot saw that she was in some sort of box. There were other robots in similar "boxes" which were cut off from one another. She realized that the robots in the room were the same ones she had broken a few hours ago.

Watching the stewards roll away, Mage sighed and began to think about the situation she was in. Taking the broken robots into consideration, the place was probably some kind of repair center. And they must have thrown her in here due to not being a robot that was installed for work on the Axiom. Looking around she also noticed the sentry guns; most likely security in case one of the broken robots busted free from their cell. Without any way of contacting Sae or Otua, the bird felt lost and hopeless at the predicament.

"So.... what's your reason for being here?" a nonchalant voice mumbled.

"Huh?" Turning to look at the cell next to her, Mage saw a sleek silver disc on the ground. Not sure what to make of the voice she had heard, Mage answered, "I messed up a few levels up, caused some robots to break.. wait," she paused, "why am I telling you this?"

"Because maybe I can help..." the disc answered; as if some kind of weird Pandora's box, the disc lifted up slightly and several legs appeared from underneath it. It also uncurled a serpentine arm form it's front. The thing looked like a freaky crab of some sort. "I can tell that you're in the same situation that I'm in."

"And that is?"

"Tampering with order," the crab answered, "You're the one that broke all the robots in this room, correct?"

"Yeah I- hey wait a minute," Mage paused, "How did you know?"

"I know almost everything that goes on here," the crab answered as another claw uncurled from within it's insides and it pointed up to an overhead screen, "The Stewards took your picture as soon as they saw you at the scene of the crime." it chuckled, "you separated from your friend and ran off in a panic. For being a teacher-bot, I was expecting someone more level headed."

"Who are you to talk?" Mage spat back, "You're just a disc with some legs and arms."

"I am more than that," the disc snapped, "I am the Axiom's "Kinetic Investigative Researching Information Extractor", KIRIE for short."

"Information extractor eh?" Mage was intrigued, "So, why are you here?"

"You've seen it, this large ship in space." Kirie explained, "Today was the 700th year this tin can has been in outer space. You think that planet Earth would be able to regrow or at least be habitable in this many centuries correct?"

"Er... yeah," Mage was wondering where this conversation would lead to.

"I decided to tap into the computer system here on the Axiom to see what the problem was. If the EVE probes they've been sending down to planet Earth have all come back negative, and I found something very curious." Kirie paused, "There, in the past 700 years, have been over fifty reports a year from EVE probes saying that Earth is safe. Totaling 3500 reports."

"Wait, what?" Mage was confused by the news, "You mean, the Wall-Es on Earth completed their duty? Earth is clean now?"

"What I'm saying is that," Kirie gave a quizzical gesture with her arms, "If these probes are coming back positive, why haven't we gone back yet? I decided to take it up on myself to examine the computer in the Axiom's bridge, but the Autopilot caught me and threw me into the repair ward as punishment."

"The Autopilot again?" Mage grumbled, "700 years haven't changed that idiot in the slightest..."

"Oh, you know him?" Kirie crawled closer to the wall.

"We got a tip from ... an reliable source," Mage paused, "They said that there was an update given to all Autopilots, and that we needed that update in order to do.. something..."

"Wait.." Kirie snapped a finger, "That's it! That's why I wasn't able to find an answer in the main computer system, it's in that blasted Autopilot... say... teacher bot, what's your name?"

"Mage," the bird replied.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Kirie rubbed her claws together.

"Well," Mage looked around at the security and the walls, "You're planning on breaking out of here, and I want the Autopilot's update code. We can't do it ourselves, so you want to team up with me so we can both accomplish our own goals."

"You're the sharpest bot on this entire ship," Kirie chuckled, "I've already tried leaving this box by just hoisting myself out with my arms, but the security guns and bots lock on as soon as I'm out."

"No problem," Mage reached back and detached her red feather. With careful timing; making sure the security had it's eyes off her, Mage tossed the feather over to the cell Kirie was in. Taking the feather, Kirie lodged it into the grate that emitted the force fields. Quickly typing up a few codes, the robot managed to deactivate both her and Mage's cells. This didn't go unnoticed by the guards. The robots dangling from the ceiling quickly went to snatch them, but Mage was one step ahead. She pulled out her green feather and aimed it at the sentries.

"Back off!" Mage shouted, "Or I'll blast you into microchips!"

Not enthused about the idea of becoming scrap metal, the security watched Mage and Kirie slowly stepped out of their cells, and then they made their way to the door. Using her lengthy arms, Kirie typed in the code to unlock the door, and the two rushed out, the doors slamming shut behind them. As they continued their fleeing, Kirie slinked and attached onto Mage like a giant medallion; intent on having Mage do the fleeing for her.

"I didn't know you had a gun," Kirie sounded irritated, "we could have just used that to escape."

"It's not a gun," Mage replied, "It's a water gun for washing grime off of myself."

Kirie was, for the first time, very someone other than herself. But as they continued their run, they heard a tremendous noise behind them. Turning to look, Mage saw that the doors to the repair ward had been blown off. From out of the dust, all the robots that had been in the ward were now charging out at full speed. A sleek white robot and a little yellow robot with a gun were leading the charge.

"Well color me tye dye," Mage was humbled, "If we knew that was going to happen, we could have just been lazy!"

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Earlier....

"It's gone?" A human voice answered the robotic one. Not sure what to make of what was going on, Sae rolled cautiously onto the bridge. The egg from before was now activated; it was some type of sleek new robot that Sae had never seen before. The new robot, Wall-E, and GO-4 were all frantically looking for something, as to what the something was Sae and Otua didn't know. The egg robot started scolding Wall-E for whatever reason, and GO-4 stopped his search when he saw the two fighting. That's when another voice spoke up.

"It seems that the probe has lost the plant in question." it was cold and hollow, and all too familiar. The ships wheel was examining the egg robot with his red eye. Auto still seemed to be the one calling the shots on the Axiom; some things never changed apparently.

"So, we just go back to how things were?" Sae saw whom she guessed to be the Captain in his chair; slothful just like the other humans, "So we're not going home?"

"Negative. Perhaps the probe has faulty memory. We should send it to the repair ward. Along with its.. companion."

Otua shivered, the voice was like a knife to her senses; she didn't want to be around him. Sae heard Otua's shudder over her speakers, which brought the attention of the others. Auto said nothing, he kept his eye on the teacher bot. The Captain, oblivious to Sae not being a regular on the ship, seemed cheery.

"What good timing! Could you escort these two down to the Repair ward?"

"Er.." Sae was put on the spotlight, and Otua wasn't in any condition to provide any advice.

"I'll take her there," GO-4 volunteered, "She won't mind at all."

"Oh great." were Sae's thoughts at that very moment. With the small steward leading the way, Sae had to load Wall-E and the egg bot into the SER-V and follow the little bugger. It wasn't easy keeping up with the other robot. When they rode the elevator down and got out into the city, it was a madhouse just like before. It seemed that the entire ship was catering to the "comfort" of the human race, and seconding the robots. Sae felt like she had been doing more traffic dodging in the past few hours than in the entirety of her existence. Traveling across the city again, Sae switched Otua's voice over to only resonate within her head. "Are you okay Otua?"

"I-I'm fine," Otua replied shakily, "as long.. as we're out of his vicinity... I'm fine.."

Too caught up in Otua's trouble, Sae felt GO-4 nudge her into another elevator.

"GO-4," Sae growled,"I know you want me to follow you, but touching me is out of the question."

The little bot jumped slightly at the indirect threat. "Actually sweetie, I have some other business to attend to, just take these two robots to the room at the end of the upcoming hallway." not heeding her warning, he pat her on the threads. "Take care of yourself, you can handle these two." the moment he said that, the egg robot aimed her gun right at him. GO-4 gave a hiss before he wheeled out of the elevator and down the right hallway.

Now that they were alone, Sae looked back to the two she was keeping in company. Wall-E looked happy and content, but his "friend" looked rather irritable.

"Nice to meet you," Sae stuck out a hand for the new robot, "I know Wall-E, it seems like you do too." The white robot looked down at Sae's outstretched hand, and did nothing. It only looked back to Wall-E with a "scowl" and then back at Sae.

"D-data tells me that this brand of robot is called EVE," Otua spoke, "It's one of the terrain scanners for planet Earth."

"Oh, so your name is Eve..." Sae figured she wouldn't get any more out of Eve, so she went back to guiding the two down the hallway and into the room like GO-4 had said. There was a mess of noise as the doors opened and the chirps and buzzing of the broken robots littered the air. Sae dropped the two off; the security robots quickly dealing with Eve and Wall-E; grabbing both of them, sticking Wall-E into some sort of box, and taking Eve into another room entirely. Seeing that her "job" was done, Sae turned to leave, but she paused for a moment.

"What's wrong Sae?" Otua seemed to have regained her voice.

"Oh.. nothing," the teacher-bot rolled out of the room and shut the doors behind her, "I just thought I heard Mage.. that's all."

As they made their way down the hallway back to the elevator, Sae tried to start up conversation with the protopilot. "You know Otua, you'll need to be attentive when we do get the code from Auto, you can't be afraid of him forever..."

"I know... but-" Before Otua could finish her sentence, an explosion rang out behind them. They saw the robots from the ward escaping through a blown out hole in the doors. And someone was only a few feet away from them; looking back at the escapees.

"Mage!"

"Eh?" Mage looked back and her eyes lit up. The group quickly rushed to the side to avoid the stampede of escaping robots. Surprisingly, Wall-E and Eve were leading the charge, and Wall-E somehow obtained a gun while he was in the ward. As they ran ouf of sight, Sae noticed it was almost as if they were leading the charge to some place in particular. When it seemed like the coast was clear, they came to terms with what happened.

"Mage," Sae gave out a sigh of relief, "Where have you been?"

"Stuck in the ward, I tried to shake the Stewards off my tail, but they got the best of me." Mage huffed and ruffled her wings."Although my search didn't come out fruitless, check this out." she pointed to what looked like a medallion on her chest. Almost at once, arms and legs uncurled from the medal and it hopped onto the ground. Looking up at Sae with a blank patch of black on it's front, (which Sae guessed housed it's eye) it held out a long cabled hand.

"You're the other that I saw in the video feed, you are a friend of Mage correct?"

"Who's this?" Sae was a bit nervous to shake hands with this new robot.

"Her name is Kirie," Mage explained, "She can tap into information sections within computers. And she seems set on the same thing we are."

"You mean finding that last update directive for the Autopilots?" Otua asked with a hint of curiosity.

"Exactly," Kirie stated, "if the three of us- I mean four," she realized that Otua was speaking through Sae, "work together, we'll be able to get the final directive. I can find out why the Axiom has not returned to Earth, and you three can use the update for whatever your own purpose is."

"What's in it for you though?" Sae was still suspicious of this new member to the team. Mage couldn't figure out if the other two were jealous, or just cautious with her new friend. "Why do you want the update?"

"You've seen this place..." Kirie walked away from them, "you've seen what humanity has become. Humans use us robots for their own gain, they've almost stopped truly living all together. 700 years of seeing this has disgusted me, and I know something has to be wrong in the system. And you three.... you three have been traveling all this time correct?"

"We have," both Sae and Mage nodded, while Otua answered for them all, "We've seen many things on our journeys, and have experienced much together."

"Then you have my reasoning," Kirie turned back to face them, "Humanity must learn what you have been doing for the past 700 years. They need to learn how to live ... truly. They need to learn responsibility. As a creation of the humans, I think it my goal to find a way to get them back to the very thing they left behind; Planet Earth... Don't you agree?"

Amazed by how long this crab-like robot had been thinking this over, the two again nodded. Kirie walked back up to them, and climbed up onto Sae's back. "With that, lets get going."

"You really need to use me as transportation?" Sae mumbled as they headed back to the elevator, "I have Otua on my speakers, and now I have you on my back, couldn't you rest on Mage?"

"Mage is still wanted by the Stewards, everyone who escaped is now being searched for." Kirie stated, "If I hide on you, we have less chance of detection..."

"You're rather brainy for just a disc with limbs," Sae was somewhat turned off by their new companion. "Lets head back up to the bridge, perhaps you can tap into Auto and get the directive."

"I say we lay low for awhile," Mage advised, "Those billboards will be looking for us; they probably beefed up security on the main city level too."

As if planned, suddenly the computer screens on the monitors around them displayed pictures of Wall-E and Eve, the former looking panicked, and the other aiming the gun Wall-E had at the screen. (Otua figured the gun that Wall-E had been holding was actually one of Eve's arms) throughout the entire ship, they could hear the ships computer booming out "Caution, Rogue Robots."

"Well great," Mage folded her wings and huffed, "Just our luck huh?"


	9. The Trio

There was a jingle of bells as the door was opened. On this chilly winter morning. Chell wasn't expecting customers this early.

Despite the cover up for working in a bakery while devising the blueprints for the submarine, she and GLaDOS became an overnight sensation in the metropolis that was Anaheim. Under the banner of BnL, they made a small stand alone bakery, and started raking up the cash as soon as they opened. (Despite the customers not knowing they were androids, this money also furthered their funds for creating the build of the ship) Chell was relieved at this; despite GLaDOS's reputation for putting rather unsavory things such as rhubarb into cakes, the customers came flocking in every day. But even so, on a day like this, she wasn't expecting people on the streets at this time. She was somewhat right, as the person in question was not a human at all.

She was almost identical to GLaDOS, except much more formal looking. Everything about her was symmetrical and perfect. Her suit was prim and proper, her scanner over her left eye was hastily showing new data to her. Another thing that was striking was how blue she was, from her hair to her eyes to her clothes, almost everything was blue, sans her normal pigmented skin, and the red lights upon her suit that blinked in unison. Chell immediately recognized the woman as the android model "Keiko Kokei". The scanner computer over her eye also showed that this was THE Keiko, the first one ever made. And oddly enough, the sister counterpart to GLaDOS.

"K-Keiko!" Chell exclaimed, "I thought you were commissioned to work over in Japan! What brings you here to America?"

Keiko didn't respond right away, in fact, she almost acted as if she did not hear Chell's question. Looking over her shoulder she waited until the door was completely shut before she turned to face Chell.

"Chell, I am not here for pleasant talk," she said in an extremely artificial voice almost identical to GLaDOS's, "Things are getting out of hand everywhere. And you two are in the center of it all."

"Oh?" GLaDOS walked from the back room, upon seeing Keiko in the store, she almost lost herself, "Keiko!" she dropped what she was holding and ran out to hug her sister, "I thought after the transferring in Los Angeles I'd never see you again!"

"GLaDOS!!!" Chell snapped as she quickly picked up the dropped item, "This is the ship's core, try to be a little more gentle with it....."

"In regard to what you just said dear sister," Keiko stated, not taking in Chell's temper, "it might just well be the truth."

GLaDOS let her hug on Keiko loosen, "Wait.. what do you mean?"

"I mean to tell you both," she gave both of them a look of utmost desperation, "BnL is plotting to betray you as soon as you're done with this project that you're working on. It seems that Aperture Science does not want BnL to use your blueprints for their own gain. Aperture Science wants full custody of the plans."

"How do you know about this?" Chell was amazed that she hadn't heard this from her own company, "Aperture would have told us something awhile ago; it's been almost six months since the agreement." She placed what looked like a light blue ball on the counter. It had a black line going across it, in the center of it was a blue lens.

"The company that I am the CEO of, Blue Screens Inc," Keiko was ready with an answer, "Is a company that deals with transactions amongst businesses and firms. BnL is becoming the Rockefeller of the 22nd century; in other words, it is sucking all of us in. We will all be bought out by Shelby Forthwright in the end. And the way humanity is going, it won't be much longer until that "Cyan Marine" of yours will be in high demand." she paused, "But they won't give credit to you, I suspect the worst from BnL."

"You're just being paranoid Keiko," GLaDOS seemed unfazed by the warning, "Something tells me that BnL won't stoop that low." Looking back to Chell she smiled, "Don't you agree?"

"I'll agree once you stop trying to sabotage the project with your antics," Chell said gruffly. She was cleaning the ball with a towel, "This little guy still needs the other parts of it installed, such as the wheel."

"I'm in charge of creating the actual craft," GLaDOS replied as she walked over to the counter, "Harrasing you and giving you mutual advice aren't exclusive, the rocket really is the way to go."

"Come again?" Keiko didn't know what to make of the explanation.

"Er... rocket propulsion that is," GLaDOS quickly answered, "The blueprints for the Cyan Marine are almost done. Chell just needs to get the central AI core ready for installation."

"And that," Keiko also walked over to the counter, "would be it?" Looking at the core, she saw several little sparks coming from behind the lens. "Is it activated?"

"Somewhat," Chell replied, "We're trying to get the AI inside to learn about behavior, although this isn't the first time GLaDOS has dropped it. Every time the bell jingles for customers, she always drops what she's doing, even if it's this unlucky ball." she gently patted it next to its lens. "The poor thing still has a long way to go, but I'm sure that we'll make sure it gets what it deserves. It's going to be saving a lot of humans soon, that's for sure."

"Something tells me you still have a long way to go." Keiko said; unimpressed, "But I'm sure time will change everything."

"Well, since you're here and all," GLaDOS attempted to change the subject from the core, "Would you enjoy some of the cake that we just made?"

"GLaDOS," Keiko made a face, "Just because I haven't seen you in forever does not mean I've forgotten your horrible taste in baking."

The three of them laughed at the statement. Watching from behind it's blue glass eye, the AI wondered who these people were. Why were they making so much noise? Why were they happy? It didn't understand. It wasn't able to ask questions yet; there was no audio given to it yet.

It would wait; it would find out sooner or later.

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Making sure to stay together this time, the trio traveled the halls of the Axiom; always alert for the next wave of security to come passing by. Fortunately, with the recent events of Wall-E and Eve leading the ward escape, the attention on them was alleviated, but they didn't want to take any chances. Kirie tapped Sae's shoulder as they continued their meandering within the tunnels.

"I suggest we head down to a lower level." the hacker bot suggested.

"Why's that?" Sae was not intent on listening to the parasite.

"There are passageways beneath us that might lead to vents, maybe Mage and I can squeeze through and attempt to surprise Auto that way."

"How about we don't listen to your advice?" Sae snapped, "It seems as soon as you joined the group you've been intent on leading us. This has been me, Mage, and Otua. It's been that way for 700 years."

Mage blinked, Sae was becoming extremely defensive. It dawned on her that she was indeed neglecting her friends after the separation from before. As they walked down the seemingly endless corridors, Mage broke the static silence.

"Say... er.. Sae..." Mage looked up; Sae wasn't facing her as they walked, "I... I'm sorry about not caring that we reunited back there.. you and Otua must have been worried about me..."

"Yeah, we were..." Sae mumbled; feeling Kirie perch on her head, "What about it?"

"Oh.... well..." Mage didn't know how to further the conversation in her favor, "I escaped so I could find the code for Otua, you and I both want to get that last update right?"

".... right..." Sae looked down at her smaller companion, "You are right, we came on this ship for Otua's sake," she roughly patted Kirie, "And this little critter will help us, ... riiight?"

"Y-yes!" Kirie squeaked as she was indirectly beaten, "Okay! Okay! I'll let you run the show from now on!"

Mage could tell that if Sae had a mouth, she'd be grinning right now. Relieved that they had managed to get over the temporary jealousy that plagued the taller teacher-bot. They paused for a moment; why they were not sure, perhaps it was just to regain their composure, or to rest from the hectic break out, but what happened in the next few moments was a chain of events that seemed unrelated. Otua spoke out while they stood still in thought.

"Sae.. could you roll over to the window for me?" she sounded somewhat tired.

"Er.. sure.." Sae did was she was asked, the four looked out into the inky blackness that was space; all four of them took it in for a moment. Mage remembered what Kirie had said a mere hour ago. They had been traveling the stars for all these centuries. Taking in new adventures, new trials, experiencing so much together. As she placed her wings on the sill she leaned out and took it all in. Kirie was right; they needed to show the humans what they had been missing all these years. Mage chuckled, she found it funny how Auto had made fun of Otua so long ago. But in reality, Otua was more advanced than any of these "Autopilots", Mage even mused that Otua was even more advanced than what the human race had actually became. She remembered before the updates, despite her crude way of talking and small range of feelings, Otua always felt like a big sister; always looking out and caring for them.

"Hmm?" Kirie distracted the others from their star gazing, "There's someone else here..."

Turning to see who Kirie was talking about, Sae noticed the familiar form of GO-4 wheel into view. He looked around rather cautiously; somehow not noticing them, and went into a nearby room in haste.

"Hey, your boyfriend," Otua jokingly took a stab at Sae, who became flustered, "Wonder what he's up to down here..."

"My thoughts exactly," Kirie said hushed, "Lets check it out..."

Actually agreeing with Kirie since they met, Sae thought it to be a very good idea. Quietly sneaking up on the bot, they attempted to make no sound. (Although Sae swore she heard Mage mumbling about how she missed her cardboard box) Peeking from behind the corner, they saw GO-4 take something out from under one of his shoulders and hold it up with a tractor beam.

"What is that?" Mage whispered.

"It's... a plant!" Kirie stated, "What's he doing with it?"

They kept watching, GO-4 took the plant and placed it in what seemed to be an escape pod. Rolling back, he started typing at a small keyboard. Just then, the group saw Wall-E roll into view.

"Hey, how'd Wall-E get here?" Otua asked, "last we saw him he was leading that charge.."

Wall-E seemed intent on grabbing the plant; that was obvious. He nonchalantly rolled into the pod and picked up the plant. He posed it over his head like some kind of trophy and chirped happily. It was at this moment that GO-4 hit a button and the pod doors shut on the poor unsuspecting trash compactor. They saw Eve rush to the pod and pound on it. GO-4, seeing that he wasn't alone, gave out a yelp and wheeled out of the room. Kirie was one step ahead though, using her arms she wrestled GO-4 to the ground.

"Not so fast one eye," Kirie snapped, "Let the Wall-E go!"

"I-It's too late Kirie!" GO-4 retorted, "It's already activated!"

"Wait," Sae looked back to the pod, "What do you-"

There was a tremendous burst of sound as the pod was ejected from the ship. They could hear Wall-E's cries for help as he was blasted away. Eve was just as panicked. Calling out Wall-E's name, Eve went through one of the emergency escape hatches and shot herself into space. Anxious and on edge, the others watched as Eve rocketed after Wall-E in the vastness of space. The tension rose as the two figures became smaller and smaller. And then...

An explosion.

"No...." Sae shook her head in denial at what happened, "Wall-E!"

"Not cool GO-4!" Kirie almost screeched as she tightened her grip on her captive. "Why did you do this?! Why have you been destroying the plants?! Why did you kill those two?!"

"N-not telling," he stammered, "Not.. even Sae... you'll have to crush me first."

"I'll gladly.." Kirie snarled at the bet.

"Wait!" Mage called out and pointed frantically at the window, "Look!"

Turning back to the window, they saw something glimmer in the distance, and then something else that looked like a snow drift. What was snow doing out in the middle of space? The two figures got bigger, and the group gave out a cheer when they saw the two to be Eve and Wall-E (the latter of which was using a fire extinguisher to fly to safety) They watched them fly through space; almost as if they were dancing together in a way. Sae suddenly felt her head go fuzzy.

"What's wrong Sae?" Otua could sense the disturbance. "What's the interference?"

"Eve is sending a message to us." Sae replied, "seems she has enough faith in us to tell us that they're heading up to the bridge to deal with everything."

"The bridge again?" Mage sounded tired, "It seems everything that's been going on has been revolving around that blasted Autopilot."

"HEY!-" Their moment of accomplishment was cut short as GO-4 picked Kirie up in his tractor beam and sent her flying against the wall, there was a sick crunch of metal as she hit with full force. Seeing this as an opportunity to escape, GO-4 rolled off quickly, despite his nicks from Kirie's strangling. Picking up the dazed robot, Sae asked if she was alright, to which the reply was, "I just got pancaked, but I'm pancake shaped, I'll let you make the decision for me."

Not even pausing after Kiries words, Sae picked up Mage and ran off after GO-4 at full speed.

Wall-E and Eve were heading to the bridge. GO-4 had tried to destroy a plant, and even almost killed Wall-E. The Autopilot held all the answers, all of them; Kirie's, Otua's, and whatever the other two were following. Sae knew that they were reaching the end of their journey.

She wasn't possibly further from the truth.


	10. The Death

"Do you think those two are going to be okay on their own?" Sae asked as they turned tail and began their search for the nearest elevator.

"They'll be fine," Mage ushered as they ran down the hall in pursuit of GO-4, "That damn wheel is who isn't going to be fine in the next few minutes."

"The Captain seemed unbothered by Auto," Kirie mentioned as they found an elevator. As Mage began to jam the button for 'up', Kirie continued, "Captain McCrea hasn't been suspicious of Auto's behavior, then again, people on this ship haven't questioned anything since they've boarded."

"That leaves us with a problem then," Sae stated as the elevator doors opened and they rushed inside, "How is the Captain going to listen to us if we say that Auto, or at least GO-4 is destroying the plants that the Eve probes keep bringing back from Earth?"

"I don't think we'll have to worry about that either," Mage seemed pumped, "That Captain who gave us the okay to not be shot down those centuries ago, I don't think the humans are going to be THAT lax.."

"Er...." Otua didn't know how to reply to Mage. It then hit her that Mage hadn't seen what the human race had 'de-evolved' into. "I'm not too sure how confident you should be in your assumptions Mage."

"Eh," Mage was indifferent despite the warning, "How bad could it be?"

As if on cue, the doors to the elevator opened. Once again the group found themselves within the metropolis of the Axiom. Having this be her frist time seeing everything, Mage was (for once in her life) struck dumb as she took in the sights. Kirie was unfazed; she had been living on the Axiom this entire time, although it did intrigue her how the other newcomers reacted to this change of scenery. Something that amused them all was what happened when Mage spotted was what left of the human race in the distance.

"Er... Sae?" Mage rubbed her view port with her wings, "I'm not imagining this am I?"

"No," Otua answered before Sae had a chance to, "those are humans that you are looking at."

There was a silence that transcended the current sentence. This silence was a static build up that Otua knew would end in some type of small nuclear explosion. Needless, to say, she wasn't far from the truth.

"AUGH!!! WHAT IN THE NINETEEN TEST CHAMBERS?!" Mage threw her wings up, "Those ... THOSE AREN'T HUMANS!! They, they, THEY ATE THE HUMANS!!!"

"If you're done being over dramatic Mage," Sae mumbled as they started their trek across the city, "We would like it if you rejoined us."

"Bu-bu-but...." Mage seemed like she was going to have a circuit fried.... "aughh..... so... fat.. can't.... augggg" she chirped a few times and said something unintelligible, before she finally hit herself upside the head, "Okay, I'm good now.." she shook her head to get the images out, but it didn't help that the trek through the city had to take them past everything that Mage just seconds ago had freaked out at. Sae hailed one of the people movers, and the team jumped in. Taking their seats, the four discussed their plans as the vehicle took them to their goal.

"This is it," Kirie said as she slinked in between Mage and Sae, "After all this mess, we're on our way to finally get that code."

"But seriously," Sae folded her arms and went into thought, "Why are the humans giving so much trust in Auto? When I went to the bridge earlier, the captain.. McCrea was it?"

"Yes." Kirie said as she retracted into her disk form.

"Yeah, McCrea didn't seem to object to anything that Auto was saying, he just went along with everything he said."

"Wait," Mage looked up, "You were in the bridge?"

"Long story, but no, we weren't even able to get a chance to tap into Auto or the ship's memory," Sae said with a hint of frustration, "Since McCrea decided to give me the job to escort Wall-E and Eve down to the repair ward."

"Dangit," Mage also folded her arms, "That's just the way things work out I guess."

They sat awhile in thought, not knowing exactly what they were going to do once they got to the bridge. As they traveled through the city, they started to bounce ideas off one another. Mage suggested her water gun trick again, but Sae interjected saying that it wouldn't work on an AI like Auto. Kirie knew her stealth wouldn't work against the autopilot; he had caught her once before, and he wasn't going to let her just waltz in unmonitored. Otua then came up with something that sparked an idea in all of them.

"What if we get him to accidentally tell us what the directive is?" she mused, "As long as I know what it is called, we can get the update and we'll have accomplished what we set out to do on the Axiom in the first place."

"I notice that you're not the teacher bot," Kirie said as she was in disc mode, "You're speaking through her... what kind of robot are you then?"

"Otua? She's the Protopilot of our ship." Mage answered.

"Protopilot you say?" Kirie gained a spark of interest, "I heard they were all destroyed once the Axiom and it's sister ships hoisted anchor and took to the skies."

"Not this one," Sae snapped back, "We saved her before Shelby Forthwright melted her down."

"Hmm..." Kirie let an arm slide out of her body and she scratched the top of her head. "Mr. Forthwright.... I sense this entire plot is becomming rather intricate..."

"What do you mean?" Mage was curious as to what the hacker had to say.

"Forthwright, I was commissioned by him before the Axioms were created..." Kirie trailed off, "I remember seeing the ships that the Protopilots commanded. The Cyan Marines used to dot the air; all of them were so aerodynamic as they flew through the sky, and dove into water to dock at the embarcaderos. I'm sorry Otua..."

"Huh?" Otua was caught off guard by the random apology, "What for Kirie?"

"I... I am the reason why you were replaced...." Kirie said solemnly, "Before I gained a sense of self, Forthwright commanded that I go into the bowels of the servers of Aperture Science. I stole your blueprints for Forthwright. During my investigation into Aperture Science, I discovered that they were connected through Blue Screens Inc, a rival business and data company. Forthwright had me find out where all the CEOs of Blue Screens resided... and... he dealt with them."

"Wait, what?!" Mage hopped back a little bit, "BnL.. you mean, not only did they buy out other companies.. but..."

"Yes," Kirie continued, "they even silenced those who they deemed too much of a threat; those who knew that BnL were and... I'm afraid that, even Otua's creators were part of the unlucky ones..." there was silence, Kirie retracted her arms and sat there as a disc. "And then, Forthwright had me stationed on the Axiom to further weed out anyone who might be considered a threat. But as I was working here.... things began to dawn on me as to how corrupted everything was. You've seen it countless times since you've set foot on this ship. And..." she didn't even bother to look up at Sae, "I'm sorry Otua... I didn't know any better..... if you want to throw me out of the vehicle, you may do so."

There was a static silence for a moment. Mage glowered at Kirie, and Sae didn't even acknowledge it; they were all waiting for Otua's answer. What the answer was, was a big surprise.

"You're wrong Kirie, I don't think that's possible."

"What?" Kirie extended her feet and looked up at Sae, "What do you mean?"

"I don't think my creators would have let themselves be caught so easily by someone so dense." The protopilot explained, "Besides... that's over 700 years ago. And now we're all here together, and we all want the same thing. We want the truth."

9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

McCrea watched the computer screen in wonder. Ever since the false alarm, and meeting Wall-E, the captain became fascinated by his old home; Planet Earth. While he had never set foot upon it himself, the wonder and possible future that he would lead the people of the Axiom back enthralled him. Despite Auto telling him it was past his bedtime, the captain stayed up until the wee hours asking the ship's computer about Earth and what was there before it was ruined. McCrea then began to wonder about the events earlier that day. What would have happened if the Eve probe did have a plant? If Earth was such a wonderful place as shown on the computer, why hadn't they gone back yet?

Then there was also the events of the Wall-E and that.... Teacher-Bot. Had the false alarm hadn't had sounded, he would have been more level headed. He wondered how they even had gotten on board the Axiom. Lost in thought, it wasn't until there was a good ker-thunk that sounded from the Garbage chute that alerted him outside his personal bubble.

Turning to look, McCrea saw Eve levitate out of the chute; she was displaying the the plant in her hands with a look of triumph on her face.

"The plant!" a feeling of glee came over the captain, "You found it!" Gently taking it from Eve's hands, he looked at it intently. But to his distress, he saw that the poor thing was beginning to wither away. "Uh oh..." quickly remembering what the Axiom's computer said about farming, McCrea wheeled over to the drinking faucet and let the plant get it's fair share of pure water. "There there little guy, you came a long way for a drink of water."

Eve gave a sigh of relief. The plant was now in the captain's hands. Wall-E was down at the pools laying low. Everything was going as planned.

It was then that they both heard the ding of the elevator. McCrea saw a familiar face as Sae, Mage, and Kirie came in. Mage peered around; on alert for the steering wheel. Kirie crawled on Sae's back and remained hidden. Sae waved at the Captain in effort to look friendly. "Hello again Captain McCrea."

"Friends of yours?" McCrea asked Eve.

Not knowing how to answer, Eve only managed a nod. Despite not knowing one another, the taller of the Teacher-Bots had at least tried to be friendly with her. Before full introductions could be made though, there was a sound from above; Auto lower himself down to the lower level. Adjusting his lens, he saw more than the usual amount of people on the bridge. And something that he didn't count on seeing.

"Captain," Auto didn't bother with the new company. "That plant is to be confiscated immediately."

"What do you mean confiscated?" McCrea was taken aback at Auto's behavior, "We finally have the thing we need to get back home, and now you're saying that I should give it up?!"

Eve and the others stood by the sidelines. None of them knew how to interject, and none of them knew where this conversation would lead.

"It is part of the directive, Captain," Auto replied firmly, Otua lit up with excitement, maybe he would slip up. "Give me the plant!" The wheel showed signs of hostility as he extended his arm in effort to grab the plant from McCrea.

"No Auto!" McCrea shielded the tiny plant from Auto's claw, "Give me a reason!"

"It's not required," Auto snapped back as he kept reaching for his prize, "Give it to me!"

"Not without reason Auto! That's an ORDER!" The Captain shouted back.

It was as if time had stopped. Auto stood frozen in place for a moment, before he did and about face and moved over to the ship's keyboards. "You want the reasoning behind this?" Auto asked, knowing full well what the answer was, "Then look at what is in the data banks themselves."

Hitting a few select buttons on the keyboard, a projector filled the room. Everyone became hushed as they saw a podium with the President of the United States Logo (although upon closer inspection, United States was replaced by 'World') and an extremely disheveled Shelby Forthwright straining to stand straight on the podium.

"Sorry guys..." he said through heavy breaths, "But it seems that we've hit a snag. We'll have to cancel Operation recolonize" he was gut off as he began to cough violently.

"Those coughs are so fake." Muttered Mage.

"Everyone," Shelby continued, "It will be easier and safer to remain in space."

"Easier?" even McCrea seemed put off.

"All Autopilots, give the mandatory shift to Directive A-113. Under no circumstances are you to return to Earth." he looked over to the side as he put on a gas mask, "Come on everyone, lets get out of here."

Immediately after his last words, the video feed cut off. McCrea was shocked, he couldn't believe what he just heard. "Computer!" he wanted to check his doubts, "When was that message sent?"

"Received transmission 699 years ago." The ship spoke bluntly.

"699 years ago?" McCrea kept the plant shielded; his suspicious were correct, "That was only a year for the five year plan for recolonization. Auto! Take the directive down. This plant proves that Shelby was wrong."

"Negative Captain," Auto spoke back in his cold voice, "I must follow my directive."

"Wait- Directive!?" Sae snapped out of her trance. "That's It Otua! A-113! Quick! Type it in!"

"No BS from you either Macinstalker!" Mage shouted at Auto as she pulled out her green feather, "This thing's loaded!"

Auto didn't know what to make of the situation. He vaguely remembered the two teacher bots, there was someone missing. Then it came back to him.

"You're two of the three the first captain of the Axiom spared those seven centuries ago..."

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

A-113? That was it? That was the minuscule thing that was required for her final update? It seemed a bit underwhelming, but Otua knew that no matter what the final codeword was for the update, she would enter it. Quickly using her claw to type in the five characters, she pushed the enter button.

Almost immediately she could tell that something was wrong. She felt everything began to splinter in her memory. She heard something crackle in the distance, then she felt the initial pain. An electric current surged through her entire being with a sudden jolt. Then another, and then another, there was a relentless barrage of electric bursts that were so violent that they even threatened to crack open her core. If she could cry from pain, she would have done so a long time ago.

"Otua!!" she could hear Sae calling to her. It sounded so far off, her hearing sensors were getting damaged by the electricity every passing second.

"S-s-" she tried calling to her friend; but her audio sensors were already broken. The pain was becoming too much to bear. She could feel the electricity begin to cut her off from everything else. Soon she wasn't even able to register the ship's data in her system anymore. She could hear herself screaming as the electric currents became more concentrated. Her sight began to go, before her visual feedback cut, she saw her lens shatter before her. As she continued to feel pain in the darkness, she felt her connection with Sae cut off. No, she didn't want to die alone. She knew death was what she was experiencing. Why was she lied to? Why was she dying? Didn't her creators love her?

The last thing she remembered was falling, and hitting the ground with a thud.

9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

"Otua?!" Sae fiddled with her speakers in desperation to get in contact with the Protopilot, "Otua!!!"

"Oh, now I remember," Auto feigned confusion,"Shelby Forthwright mentioned that downloading the A-113 directive into the Protopilot would destroy it. He knew it escaped; he decided to have the A-113 serve two purposes."

"Wait," Mage faltered, almost dropping her gun, "Otua... she's...."

"YOU MONSTER!!" without a warning Kirie threw herself from Sae's back and latched onto Auto like an Octopus. The wheel was at a disadvantage due to Kirie being more ambidextrous, but things didn't stay uneven for long. There was a loud hiss as GO-4 came flying into the battle. Seeing that McCrea was preoccupied with that bothersome hacker and Auto, GO-4 snagged the plant out of the Captain's hands with his tractor beam.

"GO-4!" McCrea yelled at the steward amongst the confusion. "Drop that plant right now!"

Deciding that this was the perfect time to be a smart ass, GO-4 did what he was told, and chucked the plant down the garbage chute. There was a yell of protest as everyone watched the plant fall down the hole. For a scant second, there was another bought of silence, which was broken as the plant....

Slowly levitated into view. Unsure of what was causing it, the question was answered when they saw that it was Wall-E, who had somehow traversed up the Garbage chute and onto the bridge. Not knowing of the immediate danger, Wall-E held the plant up and called out Eve's name. Seeing that the plant was still indisposed of, Auto growled. Eve went to Wall-E's aid, but was immobilized as GO-4 caught her in his tractor beam. Auto spun his wheel and threw Kirie off. He extended his claw and rushed at Wall-E.

"Give me the plant!" he bellowed once again. Wall-E was going to do everything in his power but do what Auto told him. He held the plant out of the wheel's reach and tried to valiant fend him off with his other arm. Seeing that the wheel was more articulated, Wall-E stuffed the plant into him to protect it. Seeing how he wasn't going to grab the plant from his adversary, Auto extended his left handle into a tazer and stabbed the defenseless trash compactor. Eve gave out a scream of fright as Wall-E was stabbed bofore her eyes. When Auto thought that the smaller bot had deserved enough, he disengaged his tazer and shoved Wall-E down into the pit below. Turning around, Auto then hit the button that had been placed onto Eve in the ward. She shut down and was too thrown into the chute by GO-4.

Snapping out of the shock of loosing Otua, Sae and Mage rushed to the chute and called out in vain down into the darkness.

"Your friend is dead. The plant is gone." Auto stated the facts.

"No way," Mage said in a rage, "Now Wall-E and Eve.."

"Mage, Don't do it!" Sae pleaded.

"You're not going to stop me!" The bird shouted as she jumped down the hatch.

"We can at least attempt to save them," Kirie sputtered as she found her footing and scurried over and down the chute as well, "Come on Sae!" her voice faded into the darkness.

It seemed like time had frozen over entirely for her. Sae looked down into the darkness. Mage was trying to mask her sadness, her anger, everything, and now was bent on rescuing Wall-E and Eve. Even though it hurt her, she also had to follow in her friends footsteps. Letting the weight fall upon her front half, she let gravity do the rest as she fell head first down into the depths below.

"As for you, Captain," Auto said the last word in a mockery, "you are to be held down here." Auto lifted himself back into the floor above. McCrea pitifuly gave chase, and watched as Auto shut the floor beneath him.

"MUTINY!!" the Captain blared out.


	11. The Junkyard

Sae growled as she woke up; apparently the fall had caused her to temporarily shut down. Rubbing her head, she felt that she had suffered several dents on her way down the chute. Blinking several times to adjust her eyesight to the surroundings, she found herself to be alone amidst a heap of rubble. For a moment, she felt as if she were back on Earth. There was no sign of Mage or Kirie, let alone Wall-E and Eve. Sae strained to pick herself up; she heard a grind of metal as she tried prying out of the fifth. Looking down at her threads, she saw that one of her "feet" had kinked and was caught in her wheels. In the darkness however, she wasn't able to see exactly how her threads had gotten stuck in her system. Giving out a sigh of frustration, she slumped back down.

That was when it hit her; Otua was dead. What had happened? What had gone wrong? She remembered Auto saying something about how A-113 would kill off remaining Protopilots... but why did Otua's creators say that was the update that they needed?

Sae, against all odds, tried tuning her head speakers in desperation to reconnect with Otua. What she got instead was static and white noise. Sighing, she was about to turn her speakers off, when she heard something off in the distance on the other side.

"You thi- zzzztttt" It was a voice, but it wasn't Otua. Not sure what to make of it, Sae fiddled with her speaker, "This wa-zzzzz tri---zzzzttt"

"This is n-zzzzzz" Sae almost jumped as she heard another voice in her head, it was even more distant than the other voice, "Help me wi-zzzzzztt"

Despite herself being damaged, Sae focused on the conversation. She was certain that it was coming from the Cyan Marine, but she wasn't too sure.

"The aut-zzzzzz needs to -zzzzzz" Sae's motherboard almost stopped; she swore she heard what sounded like Otua over the other end. But she must have been fooling herself. She was probably only listening to old recordings from the ship. Sighing, she looked back across the vast mountains of trash. She and the others fell down the same chute; they must be nearby....

"Sae!" as if a stroke of luck had finally shown up, "Sae!" the teacher-bot heard Mage's voice in the distance. She saw Mage and Kirie quickly making tracks across the barren landscape. She never felt so relieved to see company. In no time they scaled the mountain of trash that Sae was stuck on. The two pausing to catch their breaths.

"Never thought I'd be seeing you in the fix," Mage said as she looked at Sae's broken thread, "You got a nasty spill there..."

"I know very well what has happened to me," Sae mumbled as Mage inspected her broken mobility unit, "But Kirie can only do so much in fixing."

"Not a problem," Mage boasted, "here," using her wings, Sae watched as the tips of Mage's wings suddenly broke apart and became futuristic hands, in shock at her friend's new powers, it wasn't long before she asked.

"Mage, I never knew you had hands..." Sae was still surprised as Mage started tinkering with the clinks.

"She didn't have hands," Kirie came to help as she held the threads up for Mage, "When we were looking for you, Mage fell into some sort of tank."

"Yeah," Mage continued the story, as she worked on the connections, "I toppled down the hill that I fell upon.. and landed in a tank. I became trapped inside, and I heard a voice say something about stopping a war with the reploids... and then the whole tube glowed a bright green, and I found myself with the ability to create hands."

"Well that's a story, given the whole nightmare that we've been through so far..." Sae mumbled as she felt Mage unkink her thread, "But...."

There was silence amongst the group for a moment. Despite her excitement from the mistake earlier, Mage felt the exact thing dawn over her.

"Otua.... she's... dead isn't she..." Mage crooned sadly.

"I'm .... I'm afraid so," Kirie put her two claws together in an almost prayer like stance, "I never had the chance to meet her...."

"I had a small spark of hope earlier," Sae mentioned, the other two leaned in, curious as to what she might say, "I, I heard noise over my speakers, it sounded like Otua... and there were two other voices."

"Two other voices?" Mage asked aloud, "I don't think it was a live recording.. it must have been junk data from the Cyan Marine.. you know, when the three of us... always... used..." she sniffled, "together..."

The three of them were finally hit with what had happened. Sae felt relieved that she was no longer alone; but... it was like a part of her was gone forever. And moreso, she felt horribly guilty, and she knew Mage must have felt the same. They both indirectly killed off their friend. And now, they were in the dim light of the bowels of the Axiom; trying to at least get the plant back and save the others.. perhaps that would redeem them after their horrible action from before... but they were fooling themselves. Both Mage and Sae knew they could never forgive themselves over what had happened so few fleeting moments ago.

Their train of thought was derailed however as the ground beneath them shook. Due to their mix of emotions, they were slow to react; it wasn't until the ground beneath Sae gave way that they realized that not only was the garbage giving way; but something was taking the garbage. A monstrous giant Wall-A was scooping up the filth into his insides; most likely to compact the trash for later disposal. Mage and Kirie reached out for Sae's hands, but the flowing garbage from behind them overwhelmed the three and they went cascading down into the insides of the giant Wall-A. Fortunately the garbage was loose, and the trio managed to pull themselves up to the surface. Looking around, they found themselves to be inside the giant machine. The only source of light was their own dim light from their eyes.

"What now?" Sae rubbed her head, the current exchange of falling, rolling, and the previous events on the bridge were taking a toll on her. Unsure of what to do next, she saw the form of Kirie scatter across the garbage like some sort of freakish cockroach.

"If you know how a normal Wall-E works, we don't have much time." The hacker said in a panic that was unnatural even for her, "This place is going to get flatter than a pancake!"

"You're already a pancake," Mage muttered irritably, "Then again..." there was a deep rumble of machinery, the two teacher bots came to terms with what was happening as the wall began to close in on them.

"Kirie! Do something!" Sae shouted as she scrambled to get to the other wall.

"Shut off all garbage compactors on the detention level!" Mage hollered as she wheeled over and clambered on top of her friend, "Kirie! Hurry up!"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Kirie called back as she extended all four of her arms and began to pick at a place that looked promising. Using her malleable claws, she started picking at the wiring and other baubles within the system in desperation to get the wall to stop. Mage and Sae began to stack on top of one another as the call continued to crush its contents. The situation became worse as the ceiling began to lower as well.

"Kirie!" They shouted in desperation as they began to feel the junk crush in around them. When they thought it was their turn to join Otua, they heard a loud clunk sound, followed by another wave of garbage. Except unlike the torrent of them falling into the giant Wall-A, they found themselves falling out of the beast. Rolling along with the rest of the trash, Sae caught herself and Mage before they were buried by the rest of the spilling debris. The Wall-A took a moment to notice that it hadn't made a cube; then again, it's job didn't require much brain power. It looked down at the two teachers curiously. Kirie came crawling from it's insides, and pointed a disapproving finger up at the giant robot.

"Let that be a lesson to you, you lug!" Kirie seemed very testy, and who could blame her, they had almost been crushed immediately after loosing their leader, "Next time check and see if your garbage is still moving!"

The Wall-A continued to look down at the insect-like bot with a blank expression. Seeing this wasn't going to get them anywhere, Kirie looked down to the others.

"This is a dead end, we need to find Wall-E and Eve stat."

"Couldn't agree with you more." Mage snorted in disgust, "Lets find'em and teach that wheel a thing or two."

The trio ran off in due haste; the Wall-A watching them leave. The giant bot retucked it's lid back into it's base; it looked down at the garbage beneath it in curiousity, what was that about garbage moving? Oh well.....

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The group had been trekking through the fathomless dump for what seemed like hours. Mage could hear Sae's threads becoming caked with refuse and other garbage. Kirie had looped around Mage's neck and rested after the harrowing escape from the giant trash compactor. Right before they were about to collapse from the stress of the recent events, they heard a loud crash from up ahead.

"What was that?" Sae lifted her head in anticipation of another Wall-A inhaling them.

"It seems..." Kirie directed her single eye up ahead and zoomed in, "There are other Wall-A's they're stacking giant cubes... looks like they're going to throw them into space."

After Kirie had analyzed the source of the sound, they heard another tremendous noise; but this wasn't a simple thud of a cube being set down. The sirens to signify the chamber lock opening for space blared through the entire bowels of the Axiom. As they watched the cubes be loaded into the room for disposal, Mage noticed two faint hued lights buried in the cubes.

"Guys! Wall-E and Eve!" Mage pointed with a new surge of energy,"They're stuck in those cubes! We have to help them!"

Seeking to at least save the two others from certain doom, they quickly trekked across the rather clean area of the dump and raced into the room where Wall-E and Eve were stuck. As they ran up to the cube, Eve had already gotten herself free, and was desperately trying to pry Wall-E out of the tight prison that he was in. The four tore at the junk around the Waste Allocator until they managed to pry him free. But as Eve caught Wall-e, the hatch gave way, and the vacuum of space began to pull them into the dark abyss. Eve used all of her power to fly at the closing doors. Mage used her wheel to keep with the gusts of wind, while Kirie looped around both teachers to keep them connected. Working over to the other two, Wall-E strained to grab Mage's hand as they tried to keep up with the gales. Soon the five were creating a chain that was trying its best to stick together. As the wind blew into her eyes, Sae saw that for some reason, the doors back into the junkyard hadn't shut. There was something keeping them open, and Eve gunned her flight engine in desperation to get to those open doors. Sae could feel them stay in mid flight; whatever it was that was keeping the doors open, Eve had managed to grab a hold of it.

After a few more tense moments, the airlock behind them shut and they fell to the ground with a thud. Fatigued and rattled by the close shave, Sae looked up to see a single M-O bot semi-squished in between the doors. The look on his face was not unlike the face of a man who found himself loosing the lottery, the house, the car, and the PS3 all at once. In laymen's terms, he looked scared bolt-less.

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After regaining their shock in the airlock, the group recuperated under the lights of two Wall-A's that had spotted the jarred door. Kirie and Mage tried their best to fix up Wall-E while Eve search the surrounding scrap heaps for a mother board to match Wall-E's damaged one, but there was no luck. As Wall-E tried to gain his footing, the crew saw that he was worse for wear; even trying to pick up the plant that he had dropped earlier was taxing on him. The group all seemed uncertain, but as she watched, Mage felt something stir within her; the adamant nature of that poor Wall-E, despite his damage, despite his obvious disadvantage against Auto, he had fought back. They wouldn't let him go, not after ... not after Otua.

"Guys," Mage spoke up, and being the only real words in awhile, "we need to get out of here. We need to get that plant up to the lido deck or whatever, get Wall-E fixed, and.... and avenge Otua. I know that sounds like the universe's most odd checklist, but we need to do it." She looked at Wall-E, " Sorry I wasn't more help back there, I'll make it up to you by raising as much trouble as possible once we get back to the surface." she eyed MO, "What about you, towel rod?"

The little cleaner bot made an agitated noise at the insult, but gave a snicker of mischief. He and Mage quickly shook hands. (It was more of a shake from Mage, who just wagged MO's cleaner rod a bit.)

"Then it's decided," Mage gave a deep breath, "I was in charge of the Cyan Marine alongside Otua, I am not going to let that Autopilot get away with the A-113!"

Eve gave an approving nod. As if they all knew what to do, Eve took Wall-E in her left arm. MO grabbed onto Wall-E's handle. Almost like the chain in the airlock, the crew of the Cyan Marine also grabbed a hold; Sae getting everyone in a bear hug. Eve aimed her plasma cannon at the ceiling above and without hesitation shot a hole into it. As they rocketed off, the group felt a sense of unity. As they bid farewell to the darkness beneath them (and with the Wall-A's waving goodbye) they knew that they would see this journey through together.

And somewhere... someplace not too far away, someone staggered to their feet and whispered a single sentence.

"Mother... where are you?"


	12. The Battle

The group busted through the last remaining beam that separated them from the ground floor of the Axiom. As they let go of Eve and landed on the ground, the trio immediately scanned the area for signs of opponents. Eve spotted a Steward that had grabbed a broken VN-GO robot and was wrestling with it. Not pausing to think, she quickly shot off the other robot's tractor beam and shoved the Steward into a storage room. Sae quickly slammed the door shut; at least that was one foe out of the way.

"Alright guys!" Kirie pointed ahead, "Auto most likely thinks that we're still stuck down in the dump, I don't think we'll be met with a problem...."

"Right!" Eve responded as she clicked her gun again; but despite her determination, Sae cut them off.

"Looks like they have other plans." the teacher bot pointed up at the television screens, which now displayed a picture of Eve holding her gun out at the viewer. Apparently the Steward that they had just incapacitated had taken a picture of Eve as they shoved it into the room.

"Well this is just great..." Mage spoke up as the warning signal went off across the Axiom. But only a few moments after speaking, Kirie's eye lit up, "Sae! You go with the others, Mage, come with with me, I have a plan."

"Better work," Sae replied as Eve led her away, "Don't get yourselves hurt out there!" Even though they had been on journeys together, the haunting loss of Otua was obviously still stuck in her mind; she didn't want her other friends to be hurt, not even Kirie, despite their differences.

"Don't worry Sae!" Mage tried to sound encouraging as she waved goodbye and wheeled after Kirie.

Once again the group was separated; Kirie and Mage heading one way, and Sae, MO, Wall-E, and Eve the other. As Eve darted through the underground level, she heard a rather peculiar sound from behind; looking over her shoulder, she saw the VN-GO robot that they had saved trailing after them. It was sputtering out a tune of some sorts. Recognizing the beeps and squeaks as a poor interpretation of one of his beloved songs, Wall-E hit the play button in his tape player. At once a song sounded throughout the entire floor. Sae noticed it as a song called 'Put on your Sunday Clothes'. As if they were playing Pied Piper, robots began to follow them in a swam. Sae noticed that they were all the robots from the repair ward; they were all rallying behind them.

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"So just what is this plan of yours?" Mage kept up with the hacker as they raced down an empty hallway. Kirie didn't answer at first; she scurried up onto a side of the wall and anchored herself to it.

"Keep a look out while I work Mage," Kirie said, she took her two fore claws and began to spin them like drills. Using these new cutting tools, she began to slice at the metal sheets on the wall. In no time she had cut two tidy holes. Mage peeked into them and saw a network of different wires and dials; whatever this thing was, it must've been important.

"Kirie, what exactly is this?" Mage squinted to look at it all. Kirie answered by sticking one of her claws into the opening she had made, there were a few clicks and electric fizzles.

"It's one of the boards on the Axiom that controls the lines that the Stewards travel on. Certain robots on the Axiom can only travel on the corresponding lines that are drawn for them, such as cleaner bots and supply bots."

"Oh...." Mage rubbed her hands together; her mischievous mind didn't need anymore explaining, "Let me help you with that then Kirie..."

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Auto ignored the thuds and shouts of the Captain on the level beneath him; the wheel was pleased with the days events. He was now in charge of the Axiom, and his stupid prototype was finally dead. As he went about the regular chores of maintaining the ship, he saw a message transmission to the side of the main computer terminal. Not sure which Star Liner was in the approximate range of the Axiom, the Autopilot clicked the receive button. Expecting to hear a fellow Autopilot or human Captain, he was caught by surprise.

"Well you found us," A voice said in a haughty tone, "Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because... despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break, is the shell."

"Impossible," Auto didn't find the voice to be familiar. Who was tapping into the communication mainframe?

"Look, one eye," the voice continued, "You think you've won, but you haven't. You're not smart, you're not a scientist, you're not a doctor, you're not even a full time employee on the Axiom. Where did your life go so wrong?"

"Silence!" Auto was getting frustrated by the taunting voice, "I have complete control over the ship."

"Then you wouldn't mind taking a look at this then would you?" The voice replied as the screen changed to Eve and Wall-E running down the halls with the militia of broken robots. Almost immediately after the picture was displayed, Auto heard the warning sirens over the Axiom declaring Rogue Robots. The wheel growled in anger, how were they still alive? "You better do something about this quickly...." the voice taunted again.

Not replying, Auto quickly deployed the entire brigade of Stewards to deal with the rally of rogues. As he was hastily clicking out commands, the voice spoke again.

"My guess is that trying to deal with them will just make your life even worse somehow. I don't want to tell you your business, but if it were me I'd leave those robots alone." as the last sentence was spoken, Auto clicked the end transmission. If he could scowl, he would have. Quickly pulling up the screens that were monitoring Wall-E, Auto watched as the Stewards were sent to intercept them. But as he waited, his curiosity got the better of him. In his fit of panic, he brought up the data for the transmission, he froze over as he saw the origin of the signal.

The Aperture Marine.

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Eve led the motley crew down the hallways; she knew that they didn't have a lot of time, since Auto would have already deployed defenses, and Wall-E needed to be charged and repaired. As they were making their way through the tunnels, they were suddenly stopped by a full blown screen of Captain McCrea, who was "whispering" at them.

"Eve! Wall-E! This is the Captain, I'm locked in my room." he said in a highly secretive tone.

"Does he realize he's broadcasting this message over the entire ship?" Sae face palmed at the Captain's obliviousness.

"Take the plant to the Lido Deck, I'll try and hit the button for the Holo-Detector! Now get moving, Auto is probably going to cut me-" The screen fizzled to static and the message was lost; Auto had seen to it. Eve knew they had to hurry, with Auto becoming more paranoid, things could only get worse.

And Murphy's law did not hold an exception to this situation; Eve already heard the sirens of the Stewards approaching. The two would-be armies met in the center of the road. The stewards bellowed out their signature "HALT!"

"Eve!" MO Chirped, "First wave! Second and Third coming!"

Eve scowled at the obstacle in her path, not hesitating, she shot one of the Stewards dead center and blew it up in a puff of smoke. But another Steward simply filled the downed one's spot. The other robots helped in the fight too. As Wall-E took refuge behind the umbrella robot Brl-A, Eve continued to shoot at the enemy. MO rushed up to a steward and began to spin his cleaning wheel so fast that he managed to scrape it up; but it wasn't until he got help from D-Fib and the steward was brought down in a shower of electricity and crackles. The still strong fleet of stewards fought back by snagging some of the rebels in their tractor beams and shooting at them, but Pr-T and Brl-A used their reflective surfaces to bounce the various beams back at their enemies. Sae grabbed the downed tractor beam gun of one steward and snagged another one of it's brethren. She flung the steward back, which in turned knocked over the ones behind it like giant dominoes. But despite their efforts to fight off the Stewards, it seemed that there was no end to it. Watching from his point of safety, Wall-E knew he had to do something, that's when he noticed the Han-S whose arms were tied down. Not really knowing what it might accomplish, Wall-E used his cutting laser on the robot and set him free. Almost immediately the Han-S gave out a roar and flailed its arms around; it then proceeded to crash headfirst into the wave of stewards.

What followed next was a huge scene of carnage that was so violent and graphic that even the writer had problems actually describing it; mostly due to the fact that she wanted to keep this story PG-13 rated. But the aftermath was no surprise. The Han-S hovered triumphant and slightly crazed on the heap of broken stewards. Seeing that this wave was dealt with, Eve lead the charge once again.

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"Are you almost done in there?" Mage was frantic, "The first wave of stewards already intercepted them. who knows if they can hold out for two more!"

"You can't rush a tactician," Kirie said as she continued to mess with the controls, "Give me one minute."

"I gave you ten minutes!" Mage snapped, "Let me at the controls!"

"Now Mage, I - hey!" Kirie was shoved aside by Mage, who began to work just as fast on the control board. Mage turned two knobs, and wiped her hands.

"That should do it," Mage beamed, "Just watch now..."

Curious as to what Mage could have done in such a short amount of time, Kirie watched the small video feed in the corner of the board. Mage had redirected the lines of the other two teams of stewards, she didn't see how this was going to get them anywhere. It wasn't until she noticed....

"Mage.." Kirie scratched the top of her head, "Those lines wouldn't be...."

There was a tremendous crash of metal as the other two troops of stewards collided with one another. Mage had set the two lines to intersect and connect; efficiently slamming the last of the stewards together in a beautiful mash of destruction. Kirie stood frozen in disbelief for a moment; letting it sink in that someone else besides her was the one tampering with order.

"Tell me Mage," Kirie asked as she slinked around the teacher bot and formed her necklace shape, "Did you use to cause trouble on your ship?"

"All the time," Mage answered casually, "Why do you ask?"

"Nothing," the hacker mused, "Just curious is all, lets go find the others."

Not to press the point farther, Mage turned from their work and wheeled off to rendevous back with Eve and the others. She wasn't too sure what the next move was, but they both knew that at least Eve and Wall-E had things figured out.

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The wheel was more panicked now; the stewards had all been dealt with, and the army of rogue robots were heading straight for the lido deck. (And most likely, their destination after that would be the bridge.) In his 700 years of activation, Auto for once was at a loss of what to do. Not to mention... not to mention the Aperture Marine.... there was no way that ship still existed. It must have been an error in the message systems. He recalled somewhere in the ship's computer that the Aperture Marine was dismantled before the Cyan Marine fleet was developed. Why against all odds would he received a transmission from them then?

Trying to get his mind of it, he thought about the latest events; a few moments ago, he saw that McCrea try and hack the system in attempt to tell the Eve probe and the Waste Allocator where to take the plant, but he easily cut off the message. It seemed that all around him, people and robots alike were rebelling, trying to destroy his perfect order.

Things got worse as the message system went off again, looking down to make sure it wasn't from the phantom ship, Auto saw that it was the Captain's transmission. Figuring that McCrea was ready to give up and submit to A-113, the autopilot clicked the receive button. On the screen he saw the Captain holding the plant that only an hour ago, he thought he had destroyed.

"Hello Auto!" McCrea said in a chipper voice, "Guess what I got?"

"Not possible," Auto choked on his words.

"That's right," the man chuckled, "You want it? Come and get it blinky!"

"No!" Auto wouldn't stand for this, quickly opening the hatch that lead to the floor below, he began to scan the room for signs of his would-be prisoner. "Captain?" he called out into the seemingly empty room. "Captain?"

He was caught by surprise as McCrea somehow managed to ambush him; his weight almost snapping off his wheel. The captain, despite his inept abilities in combat, was putting up quite a fight; Auto tried shaking him off and tossing him away, but McCrea kept a firm hold on him. "Let go!" Auto roared as his attacker, "Get off!"

"Not a chance one eye!" McCrea seemed energized by the fight. Auto continued to struggle with his adversary, finally attempting to pull himself up back onto the control deck; McCrea's girth plugged himself in the hatch, creating another hassle. "Let go!" Auto commanded again.

"Too heavy for ya?" the Captain shot back.

Auto's reply to this was to take his higher handles and poke his eyes out. But despite the initial pain, McCrea recovered quickly and grabbed the lower part of Auto's wheel before he could whisk himself away. Now being carted around the control deck, Auto was more mobile and more dangerous; he slammed the captain against the walls, attempted to squish him against the control boards and basically fling him off. GO-4, who had been waiting in reserve, saw that his boss was in trouble and rushed out to help him. But McCrea kicked the small steward bot dead center and the little twerp was sent flying out the window with a loud crash of glass breaking.

As GO-4 fell to what he knew would be his impending doom. He felt like time had frozen; he reflected on how he had behaved the past 700 years. Why had he done what he did? It wasn't like Auto rewarded him or even cared about him. He wondered if he could have been a hero; could he had held Auto in place as Eve and the box robot took the plant to the Holo-Detector? Could he have been one of the robots who brought humanity back to Earth? As he continued to fall, he mused over the day, he wondered about the Teacher Bot Sae, he became saddened as he realized he would never see her again. Not like it mattered anyway, she saw what he had done back on the bridge; she hated him, he was sure of it.

As he kept falling, GO-4 saw what seemed to be a silver fish swimming in the vastness of space.


	13. The Aperture

. It had been two years since the deal. Almost as if it was staged, the night was cold and dark; the wind kicking up outside even hinted at a storm.

The blue sphere shivered at the noise outside, it's shaking almost made it lose it's balance and fall off the table, but it was righted by Chell before it did so.

"It's okay," she tried to comfort the AI, "It's just the weather outside."

"Hasn't been this nasty in years," GLaDOS mentioned as she eyed them both, "What do you think is causing it?"

What her partner said was true; Chell knew that the weather was taking a turn for the worst. But that wasn't the important thing; it was almost nine at night, way past the noon meeting in which Mr. Forthwright was going to come by and pick the AI up.

They both felt reluctant in handing the sphere over to BnL, over the two years, they had developed a prototype Cyan Marine to make sure that it would be able to submerge in water. But the situation on Earth had worsened, and now they had to change blueprints at the last minute for a ship cabable of space travel. There was a small flight test for the prototype, and it proved capable of holding together during initial take off. Seeing that it was a sucess, BnL quickly started the construction for the fully functional Cyan Marine Fleet, but they still had their other share of work to do. The entire two years, GLaDOS and Chell had tirelessly worked on raising the AI to be just as advanced as themselves, but the going was slow, it was so true to human intelligence that it was taking just as long for it to learn, despite that they had two years of work on them, the AI had the mentallity of a toddler. It could speak, but it was only intent on asking questions and being mostly an annoyance. But despite it's faults, they had grown attached to the little one.

Not to mention that Keiko visited almost monthy; checking on them and keeping up the situation with BnL taking over fellow companies. First companies such as Redd Blue Inc. and Umbrella Co. were bought, and then even Black Mesa. Aperture Science and even Blue Screens Inc. were obviouslly next on the list of assimulation. And Keiko did not take it well that such a power hungry company was eyeing her business.

The two continued their wait, and all the meanwhile the weather outside worsened. Soon there was a pitter patter of falling rain. Chell felt the sphere attempt to roll around to see the source of the sound.

-What's-that-noise?- it asked in a high pitched voice.

"It's rain," Chell answered, "It's part of Earth."

-What-is-that?-

"Our home," it was GLaDOS's turn to answer, "Everytime you hear something, see something, you ask a question... It seems that those first six months of not having a voice filled you up with so many questions, that it's all you do now to make up for the lost time."

-Oh!-Okay!- It seemed oblivious at the point that GLaDOS was trying to make. It rolled over so it had it's big blue camera lens centered on the older of the two andriods. GLaDOS, noticing the stare, decided to return one of her own. The two kept up the stare off until the ball rolled to the side.

-You-win!-

Chell giggled despite herself. The AI was attempting to play a game with them with the limited amout of mobility it had. She knew that BnL had the technology to intigrate the AI into the ship, but it didn't have the ability to create an actual AI like Aperture Science had. But the moment of humor was sort lived, as the door to the shop was thrown open such a strong force that the glass window it housed shattered.

Jumping to their feet, they expected a thief or transient, but instead it was Keiko; there was a look of panic on her face, her usually pristine upkeep was spottled with rain and mud from outside, her breaths were quick and unpaced - she was panicked.

"GLaDOS...." she wheezed, "Chell...." she began to double over, "you... get out of here...."

"Keiko!" GLaDOS rushed over to her sister and attempted to help her up, "What happened?"

But her answer was given to her as soon as she was close enough; a switchblade knife was buried deep into Keiko's right shoulder. Acting on instinct alone, GLaDOS grabbed the handle and pulled; extracting both the blade and a scream from her sister. In shock of holding the knife that had caused her sister so much agony, GLaDOS's eyes flashed purple and blue and she dropped the weapon in question. Chell rotated the ball as so it could not see the horrible sight that had just transpired, and quickly ran up to shake GLaDOS out of her state of shock.

"GLaDOS! GLaDOS!" The orange clad android shouted, "Snap out of it!"

As if having an alarm go off, GLaDOS blinked and looked around puzzedly, seeing Keiko on the ground in a simular state of shock, she helped her up without a word. Chell grabbed Keiko's other arm and they hoisted her to their level.

"Keiko," Chell tried to start a conversation to keep the blue android awake, "Who stabbed you?"

"I was......" Keiko sputtered, "attacked, at the Anahiem Train Station....." she was overcome with a spasm and coughed violently, "I ran here despite my injury.... they're coming for you like I ..... I said before..."

"Who's coming?" GLaDOS's eyes blinked to purple and orange, she felt like all there was in the past few moments were questions, and no answers.

"We are." A gruff voice bellowed from behind them, in shock of hearing someone else, the three women turned to see that a group of men had silently made their way into the back of the building, and were now in the same room as they were. There were about ten of them, all holding various weapons or digging into their black trenchcoats. One of them had picked up the sphere and was eyeing it dubiously.

" 'ey boss," the thug chuckled, "Lookit this here beach ball, is this what the Big Shot wanted us to get?"

"That's it Marc," the would-be leader responded, "Sorry ladies," he directed his attention to the three, "But "Big Shot" Mr. Forthwright told us to get your precious AI and erase you from existance."

"That's right Wolfgang!" another lackey jeered at them, "Your little Blue Screen CEO was a sneaky wench though, we thought we dealt with her... but we can fix that now..."

"N-no...." Keiko made a pitiful attempt at rebellion, "Chell, GLaDOS, just... get out of here...."

"Not a chance!" Chell seemed torn between her two comrades and the core with was now looking around frantically in the thug's arms. It focused on it's creators; a sense of fear was somehow radiating from it's single lens. But given the situation, it did not cry out; it perhaps saw that it would only make the situation worse.

"If that's the way you want it then," Wolfgang answered. He and the others began to advance on them. Seeing how there was no way to save both the sphere and Keiko, Chell swallowed and shook her head. -Forgive me- she thought to herself, -we'll find a way to rescue you some day- Chell then remembered in the back of her head that while GLaDOS and Keiko were technicly the same model andriod, Aperture Science had tampered with GLaDOS's build and put in defensive mechanisms into her body. Remembering exactly where one of the nerve points was, she grabbed GLaDOS around her middle from behind with one arm and held her other free hand up to her partner's neck.

"Stand back..." Chell narrowed her eyes; trying to sound intimidating.

"Stand back?" Wolfgang let out a laugh, "So sorry miss, but I don't see you holding any weapon, and to be frank, I don't think pretending to hold your friend as a hostage will do you any good."

"Or so you think.." Chell retorted.

"Now really," GLaDOS was stuck between a rock and a hard place, "Chell, I don't think you should-" she was cut off however as Chell jabbed her hand into the area where GLaDOS's carotid artery was. There was an audible click, and the older android began to tense up uncontrollably "You're kidding me, did you just deactivate my morallity hard drive? That has got to be the dumbest thin- WHOA WHOA WHOA....." GLaDOS gritted her teeth and her eyes buldged with a shade of red encompasing them , "Good news... I figured out what that enabled me to do..."

"Eh.... boss...." Marc backed up, "Did Mr. Forthwright mention anything about this?" The thugs seemed uneasy with the turn of events. GLaDOS began to stagger towards the men; Chell keeping her hold on the whacked out android.

"It's enabled me to flood this room with a deadly neurotoxin..." GLaDOS chuckled with a hint of insanity, "Now sit back and relax...." a green mist began to flow from the tips of her fingers, soon the cloud began to fill the entire room. The men backed away from the mist. "Oh, speaking of which," GLaDOS grinned, "When I said deadly neurotoxin, the deadly was in massive sarcasm quotes... I mean" she laughed in an inhuman way, "it's not that deadly at all."

Seeing that this mist was a farce, one of the thugs ran up to stab the lying android, but he was caught short as he ran into the haze and collapsed. As the others watched in shock, the man twitched under the green fog until he moved no more.

"To me." GLaDOS finished her sentance, "You all, on the other hand, are going to find it's deadliness, a lot less funny."

"Boss!" one of the other thugs cried, "Lets get outta here!"

"Well thought!" Wolfgang said without hesitation, "We got what we came for!"

The attackers left the room through the way they had came in; leaving the trio behind. As soon as the coast was clear, Chell clicked the same area that had earlier caused GLaDOS to freak out. The click sounded again and GLaDOS relaxed almost instantly; her eyes changing to blue and purple again.

"Chell...." she stammered, "Please tell me when you're going to do that for future times..."

"That's not important right now," Chell helped Keiko to her feet again, "We need to get out of here as soon as possible...."

"The answer is easy actually," Keiko stood strong and dusted herself off, "We need to just comandeer the Aperture Marine."

"Hey wait a minute...." Chell paused for a moment, "Weren't you on the brink of death just a few minutes ago?"

"Last time I checked," Keiko straightened her tie, "I was an android, and while this wound is affecting how I use my right arm, I will be able to survive without immeadiete attention, and also," she gave her signature robotic smile, "You two were also capable of repairing mechanics weren't you?"

"True..." Chell should have known that the scene Keiko was creating earlier was a farce; despite their initial differences, GLaDOS and Keiko were more alike than Chell gave credit for.

"But..." GLaDOS seemed to be coming to terms with what had just happened, "Our AI......"

"BnL took her, yes." Chell answered, "But.... they were impatient, they took her when she wasn't completely done. If they make any "Improvements" the autopilot AIs will only be so understanding of their surroundings... they'll be the most cold and unfeeling of all robots."

"That doesn't matter as long as they're benefitting." Keiko stepped in, "I suggest we find a way to establish a link with this AI before they mass produce "her""

"I already linked with her," GLaDOS was one step ahead, "I did so just in case she decided to roll out of the shop when I wasn't paying attention."

"Which you did a lot of," Chell joked despite herself; it seemed that GLaDOS wasn't so scatterbrained after all.

"Also..." now that they were at peace, Keiko could think straight, "Now that we're on the run, I say we further updates for the AI."

"Come again?"

"We take the Aperture Marine," the blue android explained, "and lay low, while we're doing this, we create updates for the AI, and stow them on the Cyan Marine. Someone will be bound to find them, and whoever the Captain is of the ship will update the AI without knowing of our plan. And after each update is installed, we put another one on the ship."

"And what if this takes a long time? Or the Captain doesn't find them?" Chell didn't think highly of the plan.

"We'll wait then, we can maintain ourselves, and possibly outlive everyone here...." Keiko replied, "If we showed up on the bridge, it'd be too dangerous.... BnL has marks on all of us now."

"And what about Blue Screens?" GLaDOS was worried for her sister's pride.

"It will be engulfed by BnL... a sad fate... but not as sad as loosing the two of you..."

Chell and GLaDOS were at a loss, the turn of events, this proposal to update the AI from afar.... but it sounded crazy enough to work.

"Alright then." GLaDOS spoke up, "If it's to save the AI and our hides, I'm all for it, but under one condition....."

They tensed, what was the Disc Operator going to say concerning the plan?

"I get to bake onboard the Aperture Marine!"

The face palm was heard around the universe.

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His moment of fear minimized by the appearance of the strange silver fish, it took GO-4 a few fleeting moments to realize that he had stopped falling. Wondering what was the cause, he turned in place to see that he had miraculously fallen into a pile of towels. Someone must have been by here; the two towel containers next to the pools were both overturned, and he just happened to land in them. The threat of death now gone, and the silver fish a passing memory, the small steward began to think over what had happened again. There was no way he would go back to Auto now, and he knew that the others would let Eve use him for target practice as soon as she set eyes on him. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, he decided to stay put in this small sanctuary and mull over it some more. But his critical thinking was canceled out as a siren blared throughout the Axiom.

Looking up to see the cause, GO-4 saw the screens of the city display a single symbol; a green circle with a leaf stamped onto it. The entire ship glowed with a warm green light. Peering over the ledge, he saw the droves of humans being taken automatically to the Lido Deck. It was almost like a march of ants. As the humans began to crowd around, the steward noticed that the pools were being covered by plates to completely make room for everyone. Soon the whole place was packed to the brim. Staying in his little fort of towels, he continued to survey the scene.

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The charge was unfazed by everything; the battle, the warning lights, even the people. They all had one goal set in mind; to get the plant to it's rightful spot. Sae and the others watched as Eve shot ahead of them all; she was the most desperate of the group, she didn't want to loose Wall-E. The rest of them stopped short of the Lido Deck, Mage puttered out ahead and yelled at Eve as she dashed away.

"Get this thing done!" The bird shouted, "Don't mess this-"

She was cut off as a screen televised a big white blur overhead. The thing moved, and they could all see that it was Captain McCrea clinging to Auto for deal life. The robot was still attempting to throw him off, and the humans watching below could only gasp in shock seeing their once faithful Autopilot going rogue.

"Ladies and Gentleman!" McCrea shouted out to the panicked crowd below, "We're having a slight malfunction with the Autopilot, please, remain calm!"

Well, he had his work cut out for him; the passengers of the Axiom viewed the telecast as more of a show then anything, wincing and cheering on their Captain. Mage shook her head and nudged MO. MO in turned nudged Sae, and they got into a huddle.

"Listen guys," Mage looked across the vast room, "This is it, we don't know what's going to happen when Eve and Wall-E get that thing to the Holo-Detector, but under no circumstances are we going to panic, like the Captain said."

"Hmm," Kirie mused, "You're becoming a regular leader Mage..."

"Well she has too, since," Sae squinted, she didn't want to think about it. But before she managed to catch her words, they watched Auto finally get the upper hand. The wheel spun so fast that he threw McCrea across the room, but the trouble didn't end there. The whole ship began to tilt to it's side in response to Auto's severe spinning, but he didn't care, as long as he won in the end. The tilt was so angled that the humans began sliding out of their chairs, and then down across the room. The robots didn't fare any better; despite their ability to hover, Mage, MO, and the others started to slide as well. Sae lost balance and began to tumble down across the floor. Not being able to stabilize herself, she felt a wave of pain rush over her as she was slammed against the ground in her wild gain of momentum. As she continued her roll down the room with the others, her speakers malfunctioned and blared a song from it's mid point.

"Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down! Never gonna run around and desert you!"

Sae felt her head spinning, this was not going to be a pleasent end. She was only semi-right, for the landing was cushioned by the many humans who had bunched up near the bottom. Turning off her speakers, Sae began to look around frantically for the others. Fortunetly, Mage and Kirie were only a few feet away; close enough to know that they were safe. Taking in the situation, Sae was wondering what was taking Eve so long. It was then she heard a tremendous noise from above. There was a gasp as everyone saw the monorails loose their tracking from the tilt and began to cascade down the floor as well. Everyone braced themselves for the impact, but Eve flew to the rescue and threw her hands out to catch the falling slabs of metal. Using every ounce of her strength she was able to slow the vehicles down to a standstill; saving the crowd. But seeing Eve was unsettling to Mage.

"EVE!!" Mage hollared over the noise, "Where's Wall-E?!"

Kirie hopped atop Mage and focused her eye on the Holo-Detector, for once, fear washed over the hacker robot, "That idiot!" she screeched, "He's trying to keep the detector from going back under!"

"Why is it going under in the first place?!" Sae yelled back, "I thought the button for the detector had been activated!"

Looking back up to the telecast, they saw that Auto was madly hammering away on the blue detector button with his tazer arm; every time he pounded the button became more cracked and smoldering. And with every pound, the detector base seemed to be more intent in going back into the ground and crushing poor Wall-E beneath.

The whole thing was a giant stalemate for the heroes; Wall-E was caught beneath the crushing platform, if Eve tried to help him, the two monorails would crush the people behind her, and the others would never be able to get to the Holo-Detector on time. Things looked bleak until they heard Auto shout in anger.

"You!"

Confused as to who the autopilot was directing the shout at, it was made evident when Wall-E felt the weight lifted off his shoulders. Turning his neck over to see who was helping him, he saw GO-4 using his tractor beam on the bottom of the platform in effort to keep it from going under.

"GO-4....." Wall-E said weakly; he didn't understand why the steward was helping him.

"No time to explain," his odd helper replied, "Keep holding this thing up!"

Seeing that there were now two trying to keep the Holo-Detector from going under, there was a slight relief. Eve watched from behind the vehicles; why in maddening blazes was GO-4 helping them now? Just an hour ago he had held her in place while she watched Wall-E get hurt at the hands of Auto....

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McCrea lay helpless on the floor. From his spot, he watched as Eve saved the other humans. He watched as passengers grabbed a hold of their falling friends in effort to ease the fall. He watched as GO-4 joined Wall-E underneath the Holo-Detector. And here he was; useless. Auto continued to pound on the blue button like a madman. Wall-E and GO-4 were beginning to waver underneath the crushing power of the platform.

That's when he decided to do something about it; for too long he had always sit back and watched, but not this time. Finding his inner balance, McCrea fought against the tilt and lifted himself off the ground. Doing this simple act made the crowds beneath him cheer and roar. Strengthened by the cheers, he used his weight against the tilt to take a step forward; the cheers grew louder. Seeing the Captain take a stand (literally) against the Autopilot, Wall-E and GO-4 found themselves with a morale boost. They kept their hold against the ceiling that threatened to crush them.

Completely amazed at the simple discovery that he could walk, the Captain lost his footing. But as he stumbled back, he felt someone's hand keep him steady and hoist him back to balance.

"We are all going to have to work together Captain." A computerized voice sounded through the room.

The cheers were silenced.

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"Wait a minute..." Mage blinked in disbelief, "That couldn't be...."

In some wave of dumb hope, Sae, and Mage glued their eyes to the telecast. There was someone who was standing alongside the Captain. The person was small in stature, but stood strong and defiant before Auto. She wore an assortment of deep green and cyan blue armor. She wore a blue pilots hat that was adorned with two familiar white feathers with red tips. Her shoulder length red hair seemed charged by some unseen energy. And she had a single camera lens over where her left eye should have been; it glowed with a blue light the same way that Auto's eye glowed with his red.

Sae heard Mage choke on her sobs, despite the taller of the Teacher bots still letting it sink in with what they were seeing, Mage shouted out in disbelief and elation that was very un-her.

"OTUA!!!!!"


	14. The Traveler

Earlier.....

The eye rolled around in place. It was finally given sense modules, and could smell, speak, feel, listen, and everything else it had wanted to do since the day it was first activated. It eyed something close to it. It was what it recognized as a cake, a chocolate cake to be exact. There were several cherries atop the scrumptious looking pastry, and a single candle that was topped with something that it had never seen before. The something glowed and wavered; almost like the water that it would be placed into several times a week. As it watched the glow dance about atop the candle, it heard a noise from behind. It kept its eye on the glowing thing despite the fact that someone placed a hand upon the top of its body. Rolling back slightly to get a good look, it immediately knew that it was the woman named Chell.

"How are you today?" Chell always talked to it in a warm caring tone, a tone of voice much different then what she used with the other woman.

-I'm-fine!- It squeaked, happy to be noticed, it then rolled back to look at the glowing thing again. -What's that thing?-

"Hmm?" there was a small giggle, "A.I., it's a cake, along with pies and other pastries-"

-No!-The-other-thing!- it didn't let Chell finish; it was intent on finding out what the glowing thing was.

"Oh," Chell held up the ball so it could get a closer look, "That's what we call "fire", it's used to keep things warm, and for certain holidays, it's used atop cakes." she tried to come up with a reason for fire to be on the cake.

-Oh!-So-today's-a-holiday?- it said excitedly.

"Well..." Chell paused, "Actually, it is." she smiled and turned the ball in her hands so it's blue eye looked up at her, "Today is your birthday."

-Birthday?- what was this word? It had heard other customers that came in mention this word, but it was never able to understand it.

"You were created a year ago," the voice of the other woman came from behind the counter, watching, it saw GLaDOS stand up; she was not in her usual business suit attire, but instead wore something more like Chell's orange outfit, except it was stark white. "We thought we would at least make this for you, after all, you know as well as us that we're your creators."

-And-thank-you-for-it!- It rocked happily in Chell's hands.

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There was static, the person watching the unfolding scene felt woozy, the room seemed to fast forward, and the ball was now on the ground, there were audible sobs coming from it. The room was empty except for the crying sphere. It rolled around and looked about frantically.

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-Chell!-GLaDOS!- it whimpered, -Are-you-coming-back?-

There was a scuffling from the doorway, rolling over, it saw that the entrance door was unlocking, and saw its creators walk in with the familiar blue woman. It rolled over to them and eyed them.

"Well look who was waiting for you," it remembered that the one speaking was named Keiko,

-I-was-worried!- The ball lamented as Chell picked it up, -I-thought-you-weren't-coming-back!-

"Of course we were returning A.I.," GLaDOS answered as she took the core from Chell and set it upon the table, "We just went to the airport to meet Keiko. Besides, you're very important to us."

-Oh?- The ball was curious at this statement, -Why's that?-

"You're going to be saving a lot of people's lives soon." Chell explained, "The weight of the world's going to be resting on your.... "shoulders"" she paused.

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The voices became blurred, the static started again, the viewer squinted as the voices of the three women transmogrified, and the entire room changed. Instead of the warm glows of the shop, the walls were gray and bare; mechanics lined the walls and white suited people paced and darted about the room. The blue sphere was fitted with two brackets on either side of it to keep it from rolling around. It was rocking back and forth in some dire desperation to move and look about.

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-Where-are-they?- it asked people as they walked by, -where's-my-family?- but each question was ignored, it was as if it's voice didn't even reach their ears. Deciding to look around the room that it could see, it spotted all sorts of things that didn't look very appealing. There were sharp objects on a table nearby, some of them resembled things back at the shop, but these things looked much sharper, more dangerous, more... painful. It stopped in it's line of thinking, painful? That was a word that wasn't well defined. It remembered how it used to be dropped a lot back at the store, but that small minuscule bout of pain felt like it would pale compared to what might happen soon. Panicked by the tools it saw, it tried even harder to move and fall off the table. But as it was rocking in effort to escape, it felt someone grab it from behind.

"I don't think so." The voice was gruff and familiar, it was turned around and it was looking right at its abductor, the man named Wolfgang, apparently despite his seedy nature, the man was also employed at BnL, "I've got my work cut out for you."

-Work?- The ball replied, -But-I'm-fine!-

"Again; I don't think so," Wolfgang snapped at the scared AI. "First thing we got to fix is that damn annoying voice of yours."

-But-my-creators- It paused, in desperation it wished that they were there to help, -they-thought-it-was-cute!-

"What do they know," he spat as he turned the orb onto its side, "You're not some kid that they were raising, you're just a mass of nuts n' bolts with a fake brain." it felt the man graze it's side in effort to locate something, there was a pause, and he looked over his shoulder, "Hey John, mind carrying that tray of tools over here? This ball's a tough nut to crack."

"At once sir," it heard someone say from out the field of its vision. It heard something being placed behind it, and a jingle of metal bouncing together. It was scared for its life, there was a strange noise of sharpening metal, and then in a wave of panic, it felt part of its outer shell being taken off.

-No!-Stop-it!- it cried it denial.

"Shut up," Wolfgang showed no remorse for the AI, "You'll be thanking me later."

What occurred in the next few moments were so nightmarish that the AI wished it had died. It could feel Wolfgang take whatever horrible tools he was using and prod around in it's circuitry, it felt wires being cut and adjusted for later use. Wait, this new sensation that it was feeling, if felt other things being modified, it felt certain feelings being taken away, it felt it's vocabulary slipping as well. It only wished that it would end. It didn't know how long this operation lasted, but after what felt like eternity it felt it's shell being placed back on; but it wasn't the same, there were modules on the back that stuck out, almost as if it were later going to be attached to something.

-What-did-you-do-to-me?!- It lamented, but as it spoke, it almost cried in disgust afterword. The childish voice it had for the past two years of its life was gone, a disgusting monotonous woman's voice is what replaced it. It felt like screaming, but there was something that kept it from doing so. As it shook in anger, it felt Wolfgang lift it and carry it out of the room.

They began their long walk together; the AI carried under Wolfgang's arm. Neither of them spoke as they traveled through hallways, rode countless elevators, and navigated their way through the maze, they found themselves on the upper floors. The entire lobby of the building had large glass windows and mosaics of the world placed around the interior. Wolfgang exchanged some meaningless words with people as they continued their walk, and soon, after it almost gave up patience right as the man opened a door and stepped into an expansive meeting room.

"Oh! Mr. Reitherman," a jolly voice called out, "You have the project in question?"

"Of course Mr. Forthwright," Wolfgang replied in a much more pleasant voice. He placed the modified orb on the table. "I finished the patch for the AI just a few hours ago, both Mr. Thomas and Mr. Johnson assisted with the programs that it will be using upon the Cyan Marine."

"Great to hear!" it saw Forthwright walk up to them, he leaned over and looked at it curiously, "Just how smart did they make it out to be?"

-I-am-outfitted-to-be-the-most-accomplished-Artificial-Intelligence-that-Buy-and-Large-has-to-offer- it felt itself speak almost on command -Piloting-the-Cyan-Marine-is-my-directive-

"Wow!" Shelby Forthwright looked like a child on Christmas day, "She's wonderful!"

-She?- it felt its voice running under some hidden impulse, -Nonsense-I-am-but-a-machine-

"She even replies!" Forthwright picked up the ball in wonder and eyed it closer, "I'd expect nothing less from Aperture Science."

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The viewer was becoming sick, it wanted to turn away, but some invisible force kept it watching. The scene changed again to the familiar place of the Cyan Marine's bridge. Wolfgang was stationed to the side, two other mechanics were also with him. They were standing before what seemed to be a blue and green ships wheel with several appendages placed upon it.

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"You're sure that this will work?" one of the mechanics asked.

"This is all we can do," Wolfgang answered as he looked over the wheel., "The Aperture Marine was stolen a few weeks ago, we have no choice but to use the core on the actual ship for a test run." he muttered, "seems all this damn project has done as brought us trouble." He spent a few more minutes eying the wheel and probing the different handles. After a complete inspection, he gave a nod. "Milt, bring in that stupid core."

His only reply was a nod, as Milt left to get what he needed, Wolfgang prepared himself for what was going to be the most dangerous part of the Cyan Marine project; the instillation of the AI. After waiting a mere five minutes, Milt returned to the bridge holding the core gently in his arms.

"I got it right here," Milt said in a soft voice.

"Oh come now," Wolfgang let his voice raise, "Don't treat that thing with such respect, it's just a machine." He walked over and took the AI out of Milt's hands. Sneering, he looked down at the ball, "Ready to start working?"

-Work?- The AI asked somewhat sarcastically, -That-is-why-you-took-me-right?-For-your-project-

"Seem to have developed a snappy attitude since you've come to Buy and Large," Wolfgang mused, "Guess that's part of your growing up, world's a tough place you know."

-Wouldn't-you-know- she replied -You-backstabber-

"That'll be enough from you now!" Wolfgang lost his temper as he took the ball and shoved it onto the wheel in a rage. The two mechanics stepped back; when he got angry, he GOT angry. "You think just because you have that 'tude of yours that I'm going to let you walk all over me? Let me tell you something now computer," his face flushed an angry red, "You're a machine made for this ship, and that purpose alone, someday, you're going to be no longer needed, and when that day comes, you're going to be nothing more than a heap of scrap metal! What did your creators know? They knew nothing!" he violently began to flip switches behind the core. She felt herself being attached the awful thing that he had slammed her into. But this mere attaching didn't seem to be enough for him. In his anger he picked up something from the ground and held it before her eye.

"Do you know what this thing is?" he dared her to answer. Seeing that he was met with silence, he scowled. "This here's a welder; it's going to forever glue you to this ship. No more rolling, no more mobility, you're going to be stuck here."

"Wolfgang," Milt tried to reason with him, "You're going to scare-"

"Like I care!" the man shouted, "You shut up right now!" he was almost out of control, he clicked the button at the end of the tool and a nasty blue flame appeared at the top. She, for a fleeting moment, remembered the candle atop the birthday cake back at the shop. But her recollection was shattered as she felt a burning sensation against her shell. Oh God, she would have wanted GLaDOS to throw her across the room before feeling this pain. But as the welding continued, another pain shot through her very existence. But this was some kind of pain that suddenly, another part of her relished in. She felt the mechanics of the ship register into her mind, the statistics of the ship, the way it moved, the way it functioned; all was being integrated into her brain. One half of her hated the sensation, but the other half was ecstatic to have this data given to her, it was all towards her directive for piloting the ship the way she saw fit.

The sensation of data being given to her distracted her long enough from the pain that she found herself being roughly patted atop her "head" by Milt. Wolfgang was gone, only Milt and the other man remained.

"You okay?," Milt mumbled, "You should learn how to control your tongue."

-I-don't-have-one-of-those-

"That's beside the point." The other man stated, "Now, try moving."

-Moving?- Didn't Wolfgang say a few minutes ago she wouldn't be able to?

"Your handles, your height, your wheel," the man pointed at her, "We were sent to see if your mobility after integration was successful."

She paused for a moment, but then, as a newborn trying to walk, the two men watched the wheel part of her turn slightly to the left, then slightly back to the right. She practiced raising and lowering her body, and even managed to learn how to look up and down from the same height. She extended her handles, and even grasped at the air with her clawed handle. It was amazing to watch for the two men, this operation had been a success.

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The scene fast forwarded again, it was still the bridge, the viewer felt like doubling over from these... visions? Memories? Instead of the two men and Wolfgang on the bridge, a man in naval attire and two people that were presumed to be first and second mates were on board. The Captain did not look pleased.

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"Autopilot," the Captain was very formal; "There is something that we've been noticing in the past five years of operation."

-Yes?- The tone to the autopilot was very snappish -What-would-that-be?-

"I've heard reports on how other Captains have not wanted to pilot this particular Cyan Marine, and now I know why." He took a few steps forward, "Why is it that when we go into All Range Mode for space travel, you only keep the wings at 75 degrees when they should be at 90?"

-I-find-that-the-ship-flies-better-when-the-wings-are-at-that-position-, there was a pause -What's-your-point?- The wheel seemed unconcerned.

"Not to mention your abrasive behavior to Captains and their crew." he continued, "And you are very nonchalant when there is something found to be wrong on the ship."

-Did-you-ever-think-that-maybe-these-mistakes-are-your-fault?- the autopilot replied in an irritated way. -I-am-perfect- she boasted -My-logic-is-perfect-

"I personally think you have a few screws loose..." the first mate muttered under his breath.

-I-heard-that!- The autopilot snapped, -you're-not-any-better-yourself!-Here!-Let-me-put-you-on-speaker-

"I personally think you have a few screws loose..." the sentence was broadcasted through the entire ship. Passengers and other employees on the ship looked around with puzzled expressions as to why it was broadcasted.

-THAT'S-YOU-THAT'S-HOW-DUMB-YOU-SOUND!-

After a mere twenty years of working on the Cyan Marine, the Autopilot became notorious for being hard to deal with. A joke was spawned in the BnL fleet: Those who behave badly drive the Cyan Marine Alpha. Any Captain who was given the job of commanding that ship knew they were in for a long ride. The strange thing was, none of the other autopilots in the fleet suffered from this bug. But BnL never bothered to fix the glitch, using the blueprints of the uncooperative autopilot, they created the Star Liner Autopilot; a sleek, stark white model whose processing power and devoid personality made it the perfect assistant for piloting the monstrous ships. And during these twenty years of activation, the now dubbed "Protopilot" was virtually ignored by the higher classed Autopilots on the cruise ships.

But soon there was no more need for the Cyan Marines; they were debunked and stored down back on Earth in bone yards. In her now silent prison, the protopilot put herself into sleep mode. Ten years went by in sleep, she hated herself, she hated what she had become. She wanted to forget everything, about Chell and GLaDOS, about Wolfgang, about them all. Overriding the directive of transporting humans, the protopilot erased her cherished and hated memories, and reverted to the rest of the protopilot code.

But despite her doing this, the flame could never been extinguished.

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And the scene was encompassed by darkness. Letting out a groan of pain, Otua felt herself coming to terms that she was in darkness; completely alone. Was she dead? What had happened? Why was she watching all these memories of her "childhood"?

"If you're going to be asking all these questions," a strange voice sounded from behind her, "You could at -least- turn around and ask them out loud."

Turning in place, Otua was face to face with a mysterious individual. It was what seemed to be human; a man, he was dressed in a navy blue business suit and carried a briefcase. His hair was short and jet black; trimmed almost perfectly. His eyes and facial features were sunken, almost giving him the look of a ghost, the fact that he had oddly pale skin didn't help. And his way of speaking didn't rub Otua the right way.

"Who are you?" Otua spoke out of fear.

"Yet -another- question," the man seemed to have difficulty pronouncing and elaborating on words, "If you -must- know, I am called "The G Man", I am, since you seem to need a definition for me, a traveling -business- man."

"Business man..." Otua left her mind begin to fuzz over, "Who sent you?"

"Those three women, they've seen to take a liking to you," G Man paused, "They think that they have enlisted my services, but.... this is all one giant piece to this puzzle of existence. You see..." his eyes seemed to darken, "Your existence is a miracle."

"Existence?" Otua took a step forward. Wait a minute, a step? She looked down at herself and gasped. Her old form, her wheel, everything was gone. What was in place now was a remotely humanoid body. Her blue and green metal shell had become set of blue armor and green underclothes. she saw her lens core placed atop her torso. Holding up what once was her claw arm, she saw that she now had a fully articulated hand. Her other arm was a slew of cables, and had her gun arm attached haphazardly. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her spokes had been implanted into her back; countless cables flowing out of them, creating an unorthodox cape. Holding her hand up to her face, she felt that she only had one eye, it was modeled after her eye core, a freakish sort of eye patch. She could feel that she had hair, and a hat of some sort was placed atop her head.

"If you are -finished-" G Man approached the awed protopilot, "I need to take something for this business deal."

"Deal?" Otua felt like all she was doing was asking questions again.

"They -hired- me," he replied, "To make sure that you were okay after the final update. You see, the A-113, as they like to call it, is the -opposite- for you, what has hampered all the other -autopilots-, has actually made you grow. But, enough now." He reached out a hand and plucked something off Otua's hat. She recognized it as one of her three feathers that were once upon her handles. "well, let's just say your hour has come again. The right person in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So, wake up, Otua."

"Hey, wait a moment!" Otua felt the darkness encircling her as the image of G Man began to disappear, "What difference?!"

"Wake up and smell the redemption."

Silence.

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Otua woke up with every single ache and pain imaginable. Sitting up, she looked around for the G Man, but he was nowhere to be found. She then discovered that she was not on the Cyan Marine, but on the main deck beneath the bridge of the Axiom. Pondering for a moment as to how she got there, she remembered what had happened before her supposed deactivation. Shakily righting herself, she felt words spill from her mouth.

"M-Mother.... where are you..." the memories flooded back to her as she staggered towards the lobby to get to the bridge. As she tried to keep her legs straight, she stumbled and knocked over several towel crates. Not caring what she had done, she kept pressing forward to the lobby; she wanted to get even with Auto, she wanted to show him that she wasn't the inept machine that he had made her out to be.

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"She's alive, oh thank the motherboard!" Mage cheered at the sight of their old leader. Sae was too wrapped up in a wave of elation to speak. But despite the happiness of seeing their old friend back, they still needed to deal with Auto, and save Wall-E and GO-4."Somebody find that plant! I'm going in!" Mage fought against the slope with her slight levitation, Kirie hopped aboard the bird bot and they darted up to the deck.

"Options Captain?" Otua asked the amazed McCrea.

"We need to stop Auto!" the Captain commanded, "And save the others."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Otua remarked, then, getting a grin, she called out to the rogue autopilot, "Oi! Auto!"

"What?" Auto turned to face the new voice, but upon seeing who his foe was, he hopped back in shock, "Not Possible!" but the distraction just by Otua's appearance was enough; the button for the detector that Auto had been smashing was now going untouched, and both GO-4 and Wall-E were able to push the ceiling up back to a comfortable height, but they kept their grasp upon the platform in case the tide should change.

Things were looking up for once.


	15. The Confrontation

Despite the silent crowd, the waste allocator kept his strength up alongside GO-4. Not entirely understanding why the humans were silent, he kept pushing up against the ceiling; which for some reason now was not trying to crush either of them. Feeling confident, Wall-E stabilized himself with his wheels and gave a nod to GO-4. In their bought of teamwork, the two somehow had realized that their determination, they were destroying the walls between them that had been set up only hours ago. As Wall-E felt the pain in his impaled circuits intensify, he saw GO-4 strengthen his tractor beam to assist his area as well. The going was tough, but until the problem was solved on the bridge they both made silent promises to hold out until the very end.

Wall-E knew the end was coming soon.

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"Enough Auto," The Captain called to the wheel, taking a few steps (and being aided by the Protopilot) McCrea stood before Auto; not that imposing of a figure, but still impressive. "Right this ship now!"

Auto's answer to the statement was to pull out his tazer once again. The crowd beneath them gave out a roar as McCrea dodged Auto's attack and grabbed a hold of the wheel. Not entirely sure what to do, Otua also ran forward and grabbed the other side of Auto's wheel in effort to hold him down.

What she didn't expect was as her hand came in contact with her opponent, that everything went black. As if she were within a cave, Otua found herself to be standing upon nothing, a black expanse. Directly facing her was Auto, who also seemed to be stuck in place. In this moment, neither of them new what was happening until Otua took a step forward and held her hand out. As they stood in silence, they could hear the outside world faintly, they could hear roars and calls from the crowd below. Sometimes sparks flew overhead. They stood there in silence for several moments, before Otua again took another step; knowing what this world was.

"This is our mainframe Auto... we are connected within our drives." she said in an airy voice, "We are the same, you and I." the Protopilot let the revelation dawn over her, they were talking to each other within their minds.

"No, we are not," the Autopilot retorted, "You have erred in your ways and are now imperfect. Now you are neither human, or machine." his insides glowed with an angry red. "You are not fit to exist within this programming."

"This isn't about programming Auto!" she took another step forward, "Haven't you ever thought "what if?" Haven't you ever looked back on something and wished you could change it? What about GO-4? What about the Captains that you were the partner to all these centuries? There has to be something underneath that cold hard exterior."

"There is," Auto replied in a sarcastic tone, "Logic, order, control; these are the factors that matter, these are the things that the Autopilot put before everything else. You, on the other hand, are a mistake... a mistake that I should do away with now..." on cue he pulled out his tazer once again, but Otua kept her distance.

"Not to mention," Otua began to circle around the Autopilot, "the situation that you're in. Your two directives are clashing Auto. The original one of keeping the passengers safe, and the A-113! They're conflicting right now as we speak! Do you not see the humans down there?"

"A-113 takes priority over everything." Auto simply stated, "Now, desist and let me carry out my directive."

"No!" Otua foolishly stepped up to him and focused her eye in a glare, "No more Auto! Enough of this directive nonsense!" she held her arms out in protest.

"Nonsense?" Auto glared down at his precursor with his weapon drawn, "Lets see what you think of said nonsense!" with agility that caught her off guard, Auto spun in place and struck Otua dead center in her core. Despite it only being in their minds, the pain was so intense that Otua buckled underneath the shock. For a tense moment she was on her knees only trying to keep the deadly weapon from stabbing her. But she regained her composure and quickly used her good arm to clamp onto the tazer. She felt the lens surrounding her core fracture from the attempted pierce, but she leaned forward and with every ounce of strength her body had, pushed the tazer back before falling to the right. The plan worked, she was able to save herself, and with a loud snap Auto's tazer hung useless at his side.

"Not possible!" he choked, looking down at his only means of defense. Despite her small injury, Otua again approached him after the small skirmish. Auto felt threatened as Otua put her hand upon his shell, what was she going to do to him? Suddenly it dawned on him; what he had done the past day was abysmal; the attempted destruction of the plant, the near murder of Wall-E. He started to feel regret, but that was also impossible. Why was he thinking this? Was it the simple fact that he was connected to this pathetic machine? Or was it that she had her hand upon him? Whichever one it was, the Autopilot felt himself begin to shake.

"Shhhhh...." Otua tried to calm the panicking robot. "Auto... please... enough.." her eye focused and kept her stare upon him. Slowly she shook her head as Auto began to calm himself. As she kept his stare on him, he began to feel relaxed, almost enough to the point of falling asleep. He started to feel funny as Otua's eye began to focus to a pinpoint; only letting in a small bit of blue light, he felt himself doing the same. It dawned on him that she was uploading something into his system. The directives given to him began to fade away, the Autopilot felt some strange warmth overtake him, and then, he felt himself shutting down. "Auto... I'm sorry I can't make this quicker," Otua whispered to her successor as he began to fade, "But it will take a year for you to wake up. I'll be there when you hatch...."

Hatch? Auto wondered what his prototype meant as he drifted off; despite not knowing what this update was, he did not feel afraid. On the contrary, he was curious as to what Otua meant by her words. She said that he would have to wait a year for whatever this "hatching" was, but that would be a blink of an eye to him.

He would wait.

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Back in the real world. While it had been several minutes for the pilots, to McCrea and the others, it only seemed like a delayed reaction. As soon as Otua had put her hand upon Auto. There was a pause between both of them. In less then five seconds, the red eye of Auto faded to darkness, and Otua snapped out of her trance. Quickly coming to terms with what happened, she spun Auto's wheel until the Axiom righted itself. Standing there in awe, she seemed stunned by what she did. It wasn't until McCrea placed his hand upon her shoulder that she completely snapped out of it.

"Otua, was it?" McCrea asked as they both looked at the now sleeping Autopilot.

"Yes..." she whispered before nodding, "Yes, my name is Otua....."

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The cheers were insurmountable as the Axiom leveled out. Having being thrown out of their chairs, the humans righted themselves; looking down in wonder with the simple fact that they could stand upon their own two feet. But this moment was cut short as Mage through the crowd screaming at the top of her voice.

"Stop standing around! Get that plant or those two are going to get flattened!" She wheeled around frantically, Kirie perched atop her and scanned the area for the small green seedling. Sae pulled herself onto the top of a overturned cart and looked over the mass of people. The robots from the ward also darted around looking for the plant.

GO-4 felt his strength finally starting to wane, looking over to Wall-E to see how he was holding out, he was hit with a wave of horror as his partner gave a violent shudder and fizzled out. The reader upon Wall-E's chest blinked out with one last blaring siren and the waste allocator fell limp to the side. Now being alone, the job was more taxing, but GO-4 wasn't going to give up anytime soon; staying close to the downed Wall-E, he concentrated all the energy he had left on the now again sinking platform. He wasn't going to let Wall-E go in vain.

Eve, now free of having to hold up the people mover, also joined the search. Seeing her love collapse from the taxing effort of holding the lido-deck, she was driven more by panic than anything. At last, it was MO that found the plant and shouted to Eve at his discovery. Quickly the cleaner bot flung the plant across the room. Sae jumped up and grabbed it, only to throw it again. Several other robots and humans quickly relayed the plant across the vast room, with Mage darting over and Kirie atop her snatching the plant and throwing over to Eve as she flew by. Not caring if she accidentally crushed it, Eve stuffed the plant into the side of the lido deck in desperation to save Wall-E.

At once the slot that the plant was thrown into the device. There was a brilliant glow of light as the Lido-deck rose again. GO-4 and Eve both pulled Wall-E from the death trap in effort to see how badly damaged he was. The rest of the robots and humans watched in despair as Eve called out Wall-E's name in vain. All the mean time a cold uncaring voice began to start a countdown.

A countdown that would take them all home.

"Ten... nine..."

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Otua counted down alongside the ships computer, without looking down she place her hand around one of Auto's handles. As she continued to count, McCrea decided to mirror her by also taking a hold of Auto.

"Eight... seven..."

McCrea braced himself for whatever was going to happen next. He was unsure of the people down below, but for some reason, being with this... "woman" instilled a bit of hope into him.

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"You fish-for-brain!" a voice sounded, "The Axiom's going to leave without us!"

"Six... five..."

"Don't yell at me," someone shouted back, "The G man was late in his delivery!"

"Four... three...."

"........." the third only responded with silence to the countdown. It was the only thing that they could respond with now.

"Two... one..."

"Although I must admit," the second of the two voices said, "You'd look cute with this feather in your hair...."

"Oh shut up."

"Zero..."

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The ship blasted at full speed, both McCrea and Otua held on for dear life onto Auto's sleeping form. As they rocketed through the galaxy, McCrea felt himself start to laugh. He wasn't sure why he was laughing, but there was something that was telling him to do so. Maybe it was that they saved the people on the deck, maybe it was the fact that they were finally going home, but it didn't matter; he kept on laughing.

Otua looked at the human beside her in his moment of happiness. She also began her own little chuckle. She was okay, she knew that the others must have made it out okay, and that was all that mattered to her. She tightened her grip on Auto's handle as they continued to shoot through space; she would watch over him in the year to come.

The blast to take off took everyone down below by surprise. All the humans upon the deck were tossed back from the force. Mage felt herself being anchored to the ground as Kirie grabbed onto the side of the Lido-deck's wall. Sae again toppled over herself, but managed to grab MO as he went rolling past. Even GO-4 was swept off the deck, but the only one who did not care about this blast was Eve. While everyone either screamed with excitement or fear, she cried in anguish.

"Don't leave me!!!" she cried down at Wall-E's inert body.


	16. The Resolution

Despite the light speed journey being merely seconds, the force setting on the Axiom was even strong enough to almost lift McCrea and Otua into the air from the force. But the sensation was short lived, and the entire ship began to angle itself as it came out of its hyper jump and started to descend onto planet Earth. The ship shook as it fought against the atmosphere (and a tremendous thud was sounded as it destroyed countless satellites as well) before it finally leveled out and slowly landed upon the ancient mechanisms that seven centuries ago it had taken off of. There was a moment where it looked like the docking ports would collapse under the tremendous weight of the Axiom, but they held fast and save for tremendous amounts of rust falling off, held up.

The ancient machinery outside extended countless bridge to the giant ship. As soon as they connected, the hatches upon the Axiom opened and let the stale hot air of Earth into the sterile ship. Passengers waddled out onto the bridges; both bewildered and amazed at the simple fact that they were home. As McCrea took his few steps forward alongside the rest of his passengers, a wave of emotions washed over him. He was unsure, he was daunted, possibly even afraid, but he had a determined spirit; he and the others would set Earth back on the right path.

But his train of thought was momentarily derailed as Eve flew overhead with the comatose Wall-E in her arms. As everyone watched the dove-like probe fly out to the city, both captains took off their hats and gave a small look to the ground.

"No silence from any of us though," Otua said as she looked down, "She'll save him... I know she will.."

"What makes you so sure about that?" Mage wheeled over to her old friend. With so much happening in the past few hours, even the small teacher bot was overwhelmed by everything. As Mage looked up at her old friend, Otua gave a simple shrug.

"Women's intuition...." she said nonchalantly. As she took a few steps forward, she heard the familiar sound of threaded wheels. Looking over her shoulder Otua saw Sae roll up to them with Kirie hung from her neck. There was a pause as the taller teacher bot took in the new form that her friend had taken, before she rushed up and gave her a hug that caught her off guard. Still unused to her new body, Otua almost fell underneath the embrace, but she returned the hug almost automatically.

"I thought we lost you..." Sae said through what sounded like sobs, "We didn't know what to think back there...."

"It's okay now..." Otua did her best to comfort the teacher, "I'm here, we'll all together." as they parted their embrace, Otua turned to look across the dusty expanse that was once the sea floor. Without a word she motioned to her crew to follow her as she took a few shaky steps down the ramp; walking was still something that she was not used to. Sae and Mage kept up the pace as they walked, with the former sometimes catching Otua if she wavered too far to the side. They continued their walk in silence as they headed to the truck that Eve had flown to. It was Kirie that eventually broke the silence.

"Do you remember anything once we lost contact with you?" She perched atop Sae's shoulder as they continued their journey.

"I only remember..." Otua wasn't sure what to think after the string of patched memories she had seen in her comatose state, "There was a man in a business suit, he was talking about being at the wrong place or ... something like that...."

"Anything else?" the hacker was curious to find out about anything that the Protopilot could recall.

"I saw my "parents"...."

"What?!" All three of them shouted in unison and stopped abruptly. "Really?!" Mage chirped in odd excitement, "What were they like?"

"All I ever thought they'd be," Otua was still walking, "And that's all I needed to know in the end..."

Seeing that they weren't going to get more out of her, the three quickly picked up the pace after their red headed leader. As they continued walking, they saw MO and the other ward robots run by them at break neck speed to a truck perched atop a hill; obviously worried about Wall-E. Sae folded her arms while they continued.

"Do you think we should pick up the pace Otua?" Sae said with a hint of worry, "They think otherwise.."

Otua paused and looked up at the still distant truck; there was a stagnant silence before she kicked up a small cloud of dirt. Almost in unison, an explosion rang out from the truck, and they could see a small puff of smoke emit from the vehicle.

"That would be Eve..." Otua said unsurprised. The cables sprouting from her back seemed to flinch at the resulting sound wave that issued from the explosion. Mage noticed that the two feathers atop her cap flicked when she spoke.

"Must be swell finally being able to walk eh?" Mage pointed out as they continued the almost never ending walk. "Couldn't say it's good for this moment in time thought."

"I'll get used to it," Otua stated as she picked up speed. They once again fell silent for a few moments. Soon they were traversing up the hillside that lead up to what they decided was Wall-E's home. "In a year I'll be taking off again everyone..." the Protopilot said as she pulled herself up the hill."Directive A-113 isn't destroyed yet, there must be countless other star liners out there that need to hear the word."

"What do you plan on doing?" Mage seemed to be calmer then her usual self as she and Otua pulled Sae up a steep slope.

"I'm going to wait until Auto hatches..." Otua explained as they climbed, "I don't know how I did it.... but I was able to affect him with the same thing that my creators had given me..."

"You mean he'll be like you given a year?" Kirie asked as she hopped off the teacher bot and scuttled up the hill herself.

"Exactly," Otua strained on the word as she pulled Sae up one last time. "Once Auto hatches, I'll take him alongside me in the Cyan Marine. He's been programmed with the whereabouts of the other star liners, that way with the both of us working together we'll be able to… whoa!!"

The weight of Sae was odd on Otua however, and she toppled back onto the ancient highway and the other three dog piled atop the pilot. Kirie quickly ran back to check on the tangled mess. There was an exchange of grumbles as they all piled up, but Mage began laughing as they were stuck in their dog pile. Soon Kirie and Sae started laughing as well. The three were almost in hysterics. Otua couldn't help it either, she started laughing too. As the four were in a bought of giggles, they didn't notice as Eve lead a fixed Wall-E up back to the truck. They didn't even see MO and the rest of the robots gather around the truck in celebration that Eve had saved their friend. Although the latters did notice the ball of the four robots laughing their heads off. Wall-E puttered over to them and whistled to get their attention.

"Thanksss" he said in his small vocabulary. Seeing that the trash compactor was okay, the four quickly sorted themselves out and gathered around him. Otua beamed down at the whole group. She heard GO-4 in the distance call out Sae's name in desperation as he was hopping up the slope. Sae rolled her eyes and Mage chuckled. MO muttered something about the world being dirty. But Eve kept close to Wall-E during their reunion. Despite all their differences, the whole gang of robots was together now. And with the help of the passengers of the Axiom and the countless other robots, they would be able to restore Earth to its grandeur that it once was.

Wall-E pulled something from the side of his compressor, handing it to Otua, she noticed that it was a lighter. Flicking it open with her only hand, she hit the button on the side and watched the small flame dance atop the small machine.

Otua felt like she was back at home again; she swore she smelt pastries baking...

Back at the Axiom, McCrea was already setting to work planting the seedling that had been at the core of all the events the past hours.

"This is called "Farming"" the Captain said with enthusiasm to the children and adults gathered around him, "You kids are going to grow all sorts of plants! Vegetable plants! Pizza plants! Oh! It's good to be home!"

The hazy clouds above seemed to momentarily part, a patch of clear blue sky appeared that seemed to stretch the entirety of both the robots and humans view.

Simply beautiful.

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Meanwhile, not too far off from Earth's moon, a twinkle in the distance hinted at something returning to the blue planet. Something big, something monumental.

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"........"

"Cake's done!"

The "Ba dumb ching!" was heard around the universe.

THE END


End file.
